For a "wider" look, should I ignore traps?

[Brian123]

Heres the situation

I'm about 6 ft tall ( 185 lb )

My stronger ( better looking ) muscles are my triceps, and back muscles.

I have a weak small chest compared to the rest of my muscles ( working on it )

In addition to my obvious chest weakness which i'm working on, I think I need a wider shoulder look.

I think its more about bones giving me that narrow shoulder look than it is about muscle since my shoulders arent too weak nor too small. Rear delts especially look great.

Shirts have to fit perfectly though or my shoulders just wont look good ( unless I take my shirt off )


Havent worked on my traps for a while and gave extra attention to shoulders and it SEEMS to be working.

Although traps give you the "big guy" look, I'm thinking leaving them alone would end up giving me a much better figure as long as i'm working on my shoulders.

I do want to look big and muscular but i'm not looking for that huge monster bodybuilder look.

Guess I want to make sure its the right "design" i'm looking for before ending up with ugly proportions finding out ive been doing the wrong thing all this time.

Problem is that traps help in keeping shoulders high which is needed for a good posture so i'm not exactly sure what muscles to focus on and what muscles should I ignore.


I'm also getting ready to do a cycle so i'd really like to read your inputs/comments/suggestions etc...

 

[youngguns]

dont ignore anything.

 

[Brian123]

dont ignore anything.

Why not? If there were a way to achive my goals without ignoring anything I'd love to.

Thats why i'm here asking

 

[muscelove]

look man you are not gonna get the answer you are lookin for here. the people here are and I are advocates of working the whole body as a unit. Not singling out body parts they want to improve. I suggest you check muscle and fitness. They have good articles that im sure would intrest you.

 

[NJL52]

Ignoring a muscle group requires you to do workouts that don't use them. In order to not use a muscle group you have to cut out compound workouts which means using ISOs which don't work for shit.

So grow your shoulders without traps extremely slowly

or

grow your shoulders and traps much faster

Easy decision for me.

 

[SgtSlaughter]

at 185lbs... you wont' be wide even if you started doing the right lifts...

You can do barbell rows (90* bent over), deadlifts and it'll help but only adding some muscle to your 6' frame will make you wider.

Ignoring traps is like tying your writing hand behind your back and using your mouth to hold a pen and write... you just don't do it.

it's not like they're going to blow up by some magically isolation... though genetics for me say otherwise but that happend with serious added bodyweight.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Heres the situation

I'm about 6 ft tall ( 185 lb )

I do want to look big and muscular but i'm not looking for that huge monster bodybuilder look.

I'm also getting ready to do a cycle so i'd really like to read your inputs/comments/suggestions etc...

Yikes. Don't do a cycle. You have plenty of natty growing to do, esp. once you learn how to train.

Ignoring your traps would be a bad idea. The best trap movemens are not 'trap' movements at all; deadlifts and overhead pressing come to mind as the hardest trap-hitters in my repetoire.

Feel free to ditch normal shrugs as they are worthless anyway

You might look into the Bill Starr 5x5 to address the size you'd like to put on. That and eating would do more for you in the long run than running a cycle when you don't know what you're doing in the gym coupld possibly do.

 

[Brian123]

Yikes. Don't do a cycle. You have plenty of natty growing to do, esp. once you learn how to train.

Ignoring your traps would be a bad idea. The best trap movemens are not 'trap' movements at all; deadlifts and overhead pressing come to mind as the hardest trap-hitters in my repetoire.

Feel free to ditch normal shrugs as they are worthless anyway

You might look into the Bill Starr 5x5 to address the size you'd like to put on. That and eating would do more for you in the long run than running a cycle when you don't know what you're doing in the gym coupld possibly do.

Shrugs work REALLY well on my traps. Thats why I ditched them hehe

Just for the record, I'm 28 and i've been training on and off for years now. I used to be REALLY thin. Now i'm at a pretty lean 185 not gaining as fast as I used to and chest is lagging and I accept that and i'm working on it.

I do have SOME experience. No expert and even if I were theres always something to learn.

Width, or lack of, in my case is related to bones, and general structure, which is why I think most of the replies, dont apply.

So what i'm thinking is NOT working on traps specifically since they'd be working, to an extent where they'd grow slowly anyway. And just work on shoulders. Anyway, size is not the question here. The question is about proportion. I've seen guys with huge chests and small arms it looked funny. Others with huge biceps that do NOT go with the rest of the body.


I want to make sure i'm NOT doing that by not working on my traps and giving extra attention to shoulders. I'm hoping it would give the illusion of wider shoulders. Its all about art. Once I get there I continue to work my whole body the way I used to.

Now my width problem is related to bones, not muscles. I hope to use muscles to hide that problem.


Thanks for your comments guys and looking forward to read more... especially ones related to body proportions in general and their workarounds.

 

[muscelove]

well body proportions are like this. Work all ur body light ull get minimal results in regards to size. Isolating your traps imo is worthless unless youre tryin to get onstage and your traps are lacking. Stick to heavy presses and your shoulders will grow.

 

[LiftHeavy123]

At 185 and 6ft just focus on compound exercises and eating. Screw shrugs if you don't want to do them. By sticking to compound exercises you'll work the entire body and increase your overall strength and size. Bench press, Deadlifts, Military Press/Incline Bench Press(45 Degree), (90 Degree) Bent Over Barbell Rows, Squats, Dips, Chin Up/Pull Ups...Also, don't use the Smith Machine for any of these unless you have to.

 

[gettnlarge01]

What are your waist and chest measurements? If you want the wide look there needs to be a good taper between these two things.

 

[thesuaveone]

At 6', 185, I can say, you aren't eating properly. Start there before taking any type of AAS. If you don't learn to eat right, the gear won't help you as much as you may think.

 

[ZGzaZ]

At 6', 185, I can say, you aren't eating properly. Start there before taking any type of AAS. If you don't learn to eat right, the gear won't help you as much as you may think.

strongly agree, what's up with all these people at 175-185lbs turning to AAS. Man, put in a little work... get some real training under your belt, and gain some weight naturally...it's a waste at this point for you to turn to AAS.

 

[youngguns]

At 6', 185, I can say, you aren't eating properly. Start there before taking any type of AAS. If you don't learn to eat right, the gear won't help you as much as you may think.

doesnt listen to this guy. My friend is 6' and 185 and he looks jacked, but i agree noo AAS

 

[thesuaveone]

doesnt listen to this guy. My friend is 6' and 185 and he looks jacked, but i agree noo AAS

LOL! Jacked? WTF, I'm 6' 242 and jacked is not a word I would use to describe myself. Unless your goal is to be a poster boy for Abercrombie & Fitch, I would suggest eating better and gain some more weight.

 

[anotherbutters]

Don't squats increase the width of the shoulder girdle, or is that a stupid myth I picked up from somewhere?

 

[thesuaveone]

I can't think back squats would increase anything in the upperbody except maybe the lower back and abs (stabilizers). If there was any type of increase it would be from the compression of the weight on the back, and that can't be a good thing if it happens at all.

I will say this, my back has thickend up over the last few years (not from squats) and squats are easier on my back now that I actually have some meat to set the bar onto.

 

[H_T_]

wtf is wrong with traps? your back will look incomplete. you wanna look lke a kite?

 

[Island Son]

I've known a few skinny guys who didn't work out at all, had naturally wide shoulders and no traps.... looked like human coat-hangers.

 

[perp69]

Nah man. Large traps look awesome. Large back without traps would mostly likely look silly anyway.

Perp

 

[Douglas7777]

I loves me somes Traps!

 

[thesuaveone]

I've known a few skinny guys who didn't work out at all, had naturally wide shoulders and no traps.... looked like human coat-hangers.

Kevin McHale

 

[H_T_]

ok. fag. dudes don't use words like "figure". good luck with the cruising, Spencer.

 

[eric22]

Well yeah you look like you are carrying way too much body fat too be jacked. Body weight dont mean shit unless you carry a scale around with you .

I am not saying 185 being that tall is the right answer but carrying over 240lbs at a high body fat is not surely not the answer .

LOL! Jacked? WTF, I'm 6' 242 and jacked is not a word I would use to describe myself. Unless your goal is to be a poster boy for Abercrombie & Fitch, I would suggest eating better and gain some more weight.

 

[lesarin]

heavy power shrugs. My traps are fucking insane.

 

[ErikZ]

I am 180 and I am very very wide...
But that is probably due to privileged genetics, deadlifts, pendlay rows and the fact that I am only 5 feet 8 inches tall

But dude, traps do not make you less wide...
Small lats do though

 

[JohnRobHolmes]

Deadlift. It will make you wider. You will look wider, you will BE wider.

 

[Guinness5.0]

Deadlift. It will make you wider. You will look wider, you will BE wider.

I totally agree here. If you watch yourself in the mirror while doing deads, you can see that your side delts are doing quite a bit of work.

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

These guys preaching about deadlift know what they are talking about.

When I did DF 5x5 cycle I did no direct trap work and my traps were the biggest they had ever been.

Squats are a great trap builder over time as well. Sounds silly, but several powerlifters I know, one being a nationally ranked super heavyweight and compete in one of the strictest drug tested feds for PL, all said shrugs aren't needed for big traps. Heavy deads and squats over time build them up.

Think about it. The deadlift puts your traps under an extreme load to literally keep your arms from ripping out of their sockets. It is gettign a high tension load placed upon and they flex from the bottom to the top as well.

When you squats, you have teh bar sitting on your traps. Your traps move that bar abit as you squat and if you are nice and tight they are heavily contracted under that weight.

Every guy I have seen that can squat and pull over 500lbs has had great traps. I know that's a generalized statement, but these are guys that don't do any direct trap work that I know.

Ignoring your traps can over time create imbalances and make you look stupid.

 

[Klown]

Figure I'll chime in here since I have the same physique you described almost to a tee.... big triceps, delts, traps, no chest, narrow shoulder girdle

When I was younger, in highschool, I looked really silly. Very skinny with very oversized traps relative to my size, and no shoulders to speak of. I got some bad news for you, alot of it is genetic, and if it's a bone structure thing, there is only so much you can do about it.

I've been lifting for 3 years now, tried a buncha different splits, as well as the 5x5, and regardless of what lifts were going well and what ones weren't, I alwayus pretty much looked the same. Any change was simply due to eating more or less, but body shape stayed the same.


The best advice I can give you is simply to hit the compounds hard and eat eat eat. The only way to really solve the problem is to get bigger all around... trust me, you will look better, and the bigger traps will only enhance your look. Trust me, alot of guys would kill for big traps.

You don't have to work traps directly. I never did, they tend to get hit with deads, cleans, rows quite a bit anyhow. Maybe others can help with isolating lagging muscle groups more (chest), but for your shoulders, trust me man, keep up with the compounds hard n' heavy, and eat , then eat some more. You will notice improvements over time.