Traps are more important than you think…
Strong, well developed traps means a strong, muscular back, a strong neck, and also powerful, well developed shoulders.
Training the traps is simple, and, because of the huge amount of weight which can be used, extremely effective.
Dumbbell shrugs are done like so…
Standing, hold a dumbbell in each hand, to the sides of the body. Now, using a shrugging motion, keeping the arms ‘dead’ so they aren’t involved in the lift, raise the shoulders as high as you can. Give an extra squeeze at the top and slowly lower.
When you first begin doing dumbbell shrugs it can feel pretty strange and you sometimes won’t be sure if you are doing it right, but the simple thing to remember is, don’t be tempted to bend the arms because you are then using the biceps in the lift, and you want shoulders only. And, as for the shrugging motion, simply do so as you would if you were saying to somebody: ‘how do I know?’