How much can you shrug?

[Smurf the little pea.]

I benchpress around 100 pounds. When I did shrugs for the first time yesterday, I found them extremely easy. The only hard part was having enough hand stregth to hold onto the bar the entire time. Do you people do a lot of weight when you shrug?

 

[saint808]

Shrugs have to be heavy to be truly effective. Although don't roll the shoulders when you do them... trust me, heh. Rotator cuffs are pretty sensitive. When doing shrugs your weight will be heavier than on most exercises because it's a very limited strict movement. Try doing them different ways like on a smith machine or with dumbells, or if your gym has a trap machine you can use that.


Rich

 

[bignate73]

tbar really blasts mine. i can actually move at the correct angle with it. i dont know how heavy i go. i go by feel and how much i can control it. i used to be terrible with form til i strained my back a few times, now im under control the whole movement. much better pump and development.

 

[devil245]

use dumbells for shrugs. i think you hit the muscle better then if using a bar.

 

[mekannik]

Agree on going for the feel of the movement.

Too oftern I see people loading up a Barbell or Smythe machine with 500+, then end up barely even moving the bar. But the TENSION is there - and they get all red faced.

Best bet - get some wrist straps (one of the few times I condone using them) - load up the bar with a decent weight. Shoot for 4-8 reps - but squeeze and hold the top part of the contraction for a 1 or 2 count. Then release.

You'll soon find out where your traps are and what a joy they are when they are sore.

 

[needsize]

I deadlift heavy first so I don't go heavy with the shrugs, but the key is that it should be the full range of motion, you don't get big from doing really heavy, partial bench presses, same goes with shrugs

 

[supersizeme]

i am relatively weak compared to everyone else on this board but shrugging is one of my favorite exercises. mainly because my traps are somewhat respectable compared to the rest of my lagging body parts. i use straps and last week i was using 280 for sets of 10 and 8, then dropped to 265 for a couple of sets of behind the back shrugs. i hold for a 2 count at the top of each movement. i don't use DBs for shrugs because i have trouble keeping the db from rolling around in my hands and my grips gets all fucked up. it's hard to explain but the DB always starts rolling in my grip with the straps. that and my gym's DBs only go up to 100 so the most i can ever DB shrug with is 200lbs.

 

[Fa2]

I wish my gym had some 100's they max at 85's so I'll start shrugs with the barbell and finish off with dumbells...

 

[ballast]

I generally do shrugs with dumbells.My current best is 135 ib bells for 5 reps.

 

[MonStar1023]

I would say around 125 lbs. dumbbells for shrugs and maybe more for barbell shrugs.. somehow my standard barbell shrug is relatively weak but my smith machine shrug is pretty strong. A lot of time my grip hinders my trap strength but I refuse to use gloves/straps.