 Question is from JP94, how do I grow my traps? Oh, good old traps. Grow them traps. You know, the most common exercise for traps is our shrugs, but I'm beginning to believe that shrugs are not the best exercise for the traps. And I learned this because of Map Strong. We wrote Map Strong, there were two exercises in there that I'd done before, but that I didn't do in regular rotation. I'd throw them in every once in a while, but I didn't do them consistently. The high pulls. The snatch grip high pulls. Snatch grip deadlift. Yeah, snatch grip high pulls mainly, and heavy farmer walks with a trap bar. Man, I started doing those in my routine, and I did them regularly because in Map Strong, they're in their weekly. I mean, if you wanna blow your traps out, you should follow Map Strong. Yeah, that was what centered around that. When we were, I remember when we were riding it with Robert Oberis, one of the things, and one of the ways that when we create a program like that, a lot of it is us still steering the programming, but we ask a lot of questions from the athlete. Like, what are some favorite moves, or what have you found well? And one of the things that when we were looking over a lot of the stuff that Robert was doing, all of us right away were like, God damn, a lot of upper back stuff here. I mean, and he's like, yeah, no. I mean, for the lifts that you have to, and it makes sense. It makes sense why he was doing a lot of that. And so that's part of what is unique to that program is we made sure to include, that's not something we would, that high of, that much volume in the upper back and trap area is probably not something we would do in a normal standard program, but because that is a supporting area for a lot of overhead pressing and lifting that they do, it's crucial. So if you're somebody who's interested in growing traps and you haven't followed Map Strong, to me, that's gotta be a must in your rotation. I'll tell you what, traps is one of those muscle groups that, you know, when you see certain muscle groups really developed on a person, you know like that's a strong. You know they're strong. Yeah, that's a strong person. Like you see a lot of developed biceps. Doesn't necessarily mean they're a strong person. You see a dude with developed traps. Usually it means they're pretty damn strong. It's just one of those body parts. And it really is an important muscle group. It stabilizes the entire shoulder girdle. The traps are very important for overhead presses and for rows and just for giving you strength in that upper back area. Traps like any body part respond well for most people if you train them about two to four times a week. So on average about three days a week they respond well to different rep ranges just like any other body part. Anywhere between low reps, three reps to higher reps maybe as high as 20. And they also respond really well to different angles. Shrugs, overhead shrugs, snatch grip, high pulls. And then tension movements like heavy farmer walks. Like when you're walking with really, really heavy dumbbells or a heavy trap bar and you're standing tall and maintaining good posture because you're using so much weight. Cause when I did a trap bar, you know, farmer walks I got up to over 400 pounds. And although I'm not doing a shrug with that weight just a simple fact that I'm supporting it and staying stable with my upper traps in my upper back. I mean, they responded like crazy. Well, it's such a great contrast between that and then doing an explosive movement where you're getting that fast twitch response out of the muscle, which stimulates it completely different ways. So now you get your traps to develop, you know both directions. Yeah, I know what's funny about traps too is a lot of people get tight in their neck and they, you know, they'll, they get that tension. And a lot of times people think, well, don't work that area out because you're really tight. And I used to believe that. Now, what I'm about to say isn't the opposite. I'm not saying go hammer the shit out of your traps if they, if your neck gets tight but some full range of motion in that area actually reduces the tension and stress you feel in that area. So I would get clients who would have really tight trap areas and I would work on correctional exercise for their shoulders and offset the overactivity of those muscles. But then I'd have them do some really light full range of motion shrugs really, really light just let them come all the way down let them squeeze all the way up and they'd get all this relief in that area. So just because something's tight doesn't mean it's too strong. Sometimes it could be tight and weak. Oftentimes it could be tight and weak. Now I know a lot of women avoid training their traps. I think this is a mistake. Now of course there's an aesthetic component. If you're somebody that has really well-developed traps and you don't want them to get too big, I get it. But if you're a woman listening and you don't have really big trap muscles don't be afraid of training your traps because you think you're gonna wake up tomorrow looking like, you know, like a power lifter. It's not gonna happen. It takes a long time to develop any muscle including the traps. Still train your traps because here's what's gonna happen. It's gonna make your mid-back look better. It's gonna give you better posture if you train them properly. It's gonna make your overhead presses stronger. It's a very important muscle for overhead presses and if you wanna develop good shoulders you also need to have strong supportive traps. So don't avoid trap training just because you think, oh I don't want a big neck or whatever. Worst case scenario you get to the point where you look in the mirror and you're like, okay I think I'm happy where my traps are. Then you can really scale down but it won't happen overnight. I wouldn't freak out over it. Don't avoid the trap.