Behind-the-Back Barbell Shrug

How to do it

1. Set a barbell in a rack at about mid-thigh height and stand with the bar behind you.
2. Take an overhand grip a little wider than your hips, arms straight, the bar resting against the backs of your thighs.
3. Stand tall with your chest up and your shoulders relaxed all the way down.
4. Shrug straight up, lifting the shoulders toward your ears without bending the elbows.
5. Pause briefly at the top.
6. Lower until the shoulders are fully down again before the next repetition.

Common mistakes

• Bending the elbows to get the bar higher. Once the elbow bends it is an upright row, and the arms are doing what the shoulders were meant to do.
• Rolling the shoulders backward at the top. The shoulder blade travels up and down; adding a circle changes nothing about the load and puts the shoulder through a range it is not being supported in.
• Treating the behind-the-back version as the better one. Holding the bar behind you stops the shoulders drifting forward, so the shrug runs closer to straight up — a different position, not an improvement on the front version.
• Cutting the bottom short. Letting the shoulders come all the way down between repetitions is what gives the elevators — the upper trapezius and the levator scapulae underneath it — a full range to work through.

Muscles worked

Primary

• Traps

Secondary

• Forearm Flexors
• Forearm Extensors
• Rhomboids
• Middle TrapeziusTraps
• Levator Scapulae