To Build Your Upper Back, Dumbbell Shrugs Are a Must

If you've been wondering how to build your traps, dumbbell shrugs are all you need. 

Other muscles often require you to attack them from different angles or with various pieces of equipment; seriously, how many biceps exercises have you tried?

But for your traps, it’s one-and-done with dumbbell shrugs. It’s Occam’s razor in action—the simplest answer is the correct one. Shrugs add mass to your upper back, strengthen the muscles that affect your posture, and are incredibly simple to do. Here’s how.

How To Do Shrugs With Dumbbells

If you're looking for one of the best exercises for traps, dumbbell shrugs are simple and effective. 

What you need: A pair of medium to heavy dumbbells, and that’s it. Lifting straps are useful—more on that later.

• Step 1: Stand upright with your feet under your hips, holding each dumbbell down at your sides with your palms facing each other. You should feel a nice trap muscle stretch.

• Step 2: Brace your core and pull your shoulders up to your ears without bending your elbows.

Dumbbell Shrugs Muscles Worked

The dumbbell shrug really only works one muscle—the trapezius. Your traps rest across your upper back between your shoulder blades and have three distinct regions. 

• The upper traps, which run from your collar bones up to the base of your skull, primarily elevate the scapula; they pull your shoulders up to your ears. 

That’s what you’re working when you do shrugs. You’ll get a bit of forearm stimulation as well, since you have to hold the weights firmly in-hand, but shrugs are about as isolating as you can get with a dumbbell exercise. 

Dumbbell Shrug Benefits

More muscle mass isn’t the only reason to stick shrugs into your workout. Here are some of the exercise’s most important benefits: 

• Easy Isolation: Dumbbell shrugs effectively isolate your upper traps, allowing for targeted stimulation and growth.

• Better Posture: Your traps are some of the most important muscles for good posture and to strengthen neck muscles—you must train all three regions sufficiently.

• Convenient To Do: Dumbbell shrugs are literally grab-and-go. They don’t require niche equipment or have a steep learning curve. 

Common Mistakes & Form Fixes

Dumbbell shrugs might be simple, but there’s still plenty that can go wrong. Perfecting your form not only helps reduce injury risk, but also ensures you’re squeezing every drop of potential gains out of the exercise. Steer clear of these common errors. 

Bending Your Arms

DB shrugs isolate your traps; motion should occur only at the joint your trapezius affects. Don’t bend your elbows when you shrug, let your arms hang straight. Heavy shrugs can tempt plenty of unproductive movement in other areas, and you need to be especially mindful of turning them into an arm exercise…

Swinging or Swaying

…Or a lower back movement. When you shrug, keep your core braced and your feet firmly planted on the floor. You shouldn’t list side to side, thrust or bend your hips to generate momentum, or come up onto your tippy toes. Aside from your shoulders rising and falling, you need to be a statue. 

Head Movement

Here’s the deal. Folks tend to overstate the dangers associated with head movement while lifting weights, but that doesn’t mean you should intentionally twist your head or look anywhere other than straight ahead. There’s nothing to gain from it, so pick a point in front of you and fix your eyes on it for your entire set. 

Not Using Straps

Make no mistake, lifting straps aren’t a prerequisite to performing or even making gains with dumbbell shrugs. Still, shrugs are among the best candidates for strapping up. Why?

The primary goal of the exercise is to apply high forces and plenty of load to your trapezius muscles—not to train your grip strength. These elements oppose one another. If you’re focusing with all your might to hold the weights, how can you shrug with a complete range of motion and any respectable intensity?

Using straps lets you work with heavier weights and better isolate your traps. You can train your grip strength elsewhere in the weight room. 

Programming Tips

When it comes to DB shrugs, you can sort of do them whenever, especially if you’re preserving your grip strength by using lifting straps. Regardless, here’s some practical programming suggestions:

• Intensity: Go big. If you’re using straps, grab dumbbells toward the heavy end of the rack and don’t be afraid to hit absolute failure. 

• Volume: 2 to 4 sets of 6 to 10 reps is plenty.

• Frequency: If you’re doing other upper back training, you only need to perform shrugs once a week—twice if you consider your traps a weak point.

• Timing: Shrugs work great as the capstone to a back workout, but you can do them at any point in your session. If you aren’t using straps, save them for the end so you don’t deplete your grip strength. 

Technique tip: The latest research on hypertrophy indicates that long-length training, or applying tension to a muscle when it’s stretched, works as well or better as using a full range of motion.

For shrugs, you might consider only doing the bottom half of the move, pulling your shoulders from maximal depression to roughly a neutral position. 

FAQs

Are shrugs bad for your shoulders?

Absolutely not. However, training one of a muscle's functions while neglecting the others can be a recipe for imbalances or future injury. 

If you’re doing lots of shrugs, make sure you perform movements that target the other roles of your traps—scapular retraction and depression in particular. Rows, pull-ups, and band pull-aparts are great options. 

Are dumbbell or barbell shrugs better?

When it comes to isolation exercises, the equipment you use is mostly a preference thing. That said, some people find barbell shrugs awkward due to the bar grazing the thighs or groin. Dumbbells are held naturally at your sides. 

How much weight should I use on dumbbell shrugs? 

If you’re training dumbbell shrugs solely for upper back muscle growth, use lifting straps and grab heavy dumbbells. Without straps, you’ll have to go much lighter, but holding the weights with your hands will also improve grip strength.

Meet The Expert

Jake Dickson holds a B.S. degree in Exercise Science and is a NASM-CPT. As a health & wellness writer, Jake focuses on making fitness practical and accessible for any audience. Off the clock, you can find Jake at the gym or unwinding by the beach.

This article was reviewed by Ashley Boyer, ACE-CPT, for accuracy.