try throwing in some DB shrugs, behind the back BB shrugs and 3-4 sets of upright rows! reps are going to be up to you but 8-12 is what i would do and go pretty heavy.
yeah we have been doing db shrugs but we recently changed up the workout. and we do front and behind the back bb shrugs now in our workouts… seems to be good but just wondered if there is any special techniques to it or other ways
well as far as technique goes make sure you are really concentratingon using your traps specifically, keep your elbows tight to your body and pull as far up as you can.
another exercise you can try out that really blasts your traps is power cleans but technique is very crucial. it takes some special equipment like a platform for power lifts and possibly rubber weights.
Correct me if I am wrong 240, but I always thought traps respond best to a 10-12 rep range. Also when going “heavy” be sure to using perfect form. It is easy to lose form when throwing heavy weight on there. Use slow controlled movements and be sure to go a full rep range. I see a bunch of people jerking or not going a full rep range when going heavy.
well i when i do shrugs i usually do 4x8-12 heavy with a BB and then 2xfailure on DB shrugs.
i can agree that i see people using way too much weight and breaking form on shrugs. they dont get a full range of motion and they tend to bend their elbows. personally i have strong traps and only rep 225ish with proper form. however i hate shrugs with a passion so i tend to use other exercises for my trap development.
if you invest in some lifting straps you might see some better results because most people have a tendency to lose their grip on the bar before their muscles are fatigued.
yeah i have problems with gripping 225… so i have straps and can lift 405 pretty good and do 6-7 reps on that.
another exercise you can try out that really blasts your traps is power cleans but technique is very crucial. it takes some special equipment like a platform for power lifts and possibly rubber weights.
yeah my friend played football and knows these all too well… i never did them but seen it done alot.
They are also a good “power movement” to spark you GH.
pittspeed, how are the fitness goals going?
My goals have changed since I started lifting a little. I was going for mass but now that I bulked up to where I want to be, I am trying to keep the mass but also get a little more definition. The only problem is, if I am not moving up in weight I seem to fall back a few steps.
My 1RM on bench is still 265 but for the past month I have lost a little bit of size in my chest. :dunno: I’m not to mad about it because I am in better shape now than I have ever been, but I need to get a workout that will get me to where I want to be, and I haven’t found it yet.
Maybe it’s finally time for a supplement or two. I have not taken any sort of supplement during my last little bulking up stage, but I may need some help that my normal diet can’t keep up with.
your probably just hitting a plateau and need to change up your workout.
your body is very good at adapting to specific exercise routines. what happens is your body wants to maintain homeostasis which is staying the same i.e. not gaining muscle or losing fat. once your body adpats to a routine you will still be able to lift similar poundages you will just lose some mass because your body has adapted and found a more efficent way to perform a specific movement.
hope i didnt lose you…
so what i would say to try is switching up your routine. if its chest that your concerned with do a few super high reps sets, if you always use barbells switch to DBs but most importantly switch up the order you work your muscles and the days you do certain body parts.
also, you should consider a solid week off from lifting weights and maybe work on your core or do cardio. your body needs a week off for every 6-8 weeks you are trainning. the time off will give you time to recover from all of your workouts and you will actually come back well rested and stronger than when you left.
the other thing i want to hit on is people trying to gain strength and size while losing fat and “toning up”. this is a bodybuilding holy grail and i say that because it is ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to gain strength and size while losing fat. you will see small amounts of weight lose during a hypertrophy or mass building workout but that is do to increased caloric needs of your body due to new muslce growth. it comes down to what you want more because you cant do both at the same time.
right now im trying to lean up for summer because i had a horrid off season and put on more fat than i really like to admit. so i only did about 8 weeks of hypertrophy training before i go into a cutting phase. i still lift weights 5 days a week but im not pushing myself as hard as i would normally due to my decreased caloric intake. if you push to hard while dieting you will start to overtrain and stop ALL positive progress.
my routine is still a 5 day split but i limited the amount of sets to 12-14 and keep my reps above 10. i have also stopped doing multiple compound movements for each bodypart on a single day. my chest day are something like this:
3x12 DB Bench
3x15 DB Fly (incline or flat)
3x15 Cable X’over
3xfailure Pushups
instead of my typical mass workout:
Barbell bench 12,10,8,6,4
Incline DB Bench 4x8
DB Pullover
Dips
Cable X’over
i use ALOT of compound movements in my mass programs.
hahaha. ive typed so much that ive lost my entire train of thought! give me a minute and ill add more to this… 
Jimmy
ok…
the other thing i wanted hit on was cardio and how to effectively burn stored bodyfat by doing it.
when i started doing cardio a few weeks back is was hard to do 15 minutes on an elliptical in my target heart range (ill explain this in a minute).
how i have been able to achieve greater lengths of cardio is to pick a time i know i can accomplish which was 15 minutes. i would do 15 minutes of cardio after every workout the first week. th second week i would add 5 minutes to the time and do 20 minutes and so forth until i was up to 30 minutes of cardio after every workout. as soon as i had the ability to do 30 minutes of non stop cardio i started adding 10 minutes a week instead of 5 so i was increasing my time in my Target Heart Range dramatically which means more burnt calories and less fat 
okay so what is yout target heart range and why is it important?
Target Heart Rate (THR) is used to measure the intensity of your workout. It can give you an idea of whether you are working too hard or maybe not hard enough.
ill use myself as an example
* <b>220-your age= Max Heart Rate (MHR)</b>
im 22 years old so my MHR is 220-22 which is 198. the number 198 is the maximum number of times my heart should beat a minute. let me stress that it is the MAXIMUM and you shouldnt get near this for extented periods.
okay so 60% would be 198 x .6 which is 118.8 and 85% would be 198 x .85 which is 168.3. ill round the numbers so my THR is between 119 and 168 beats per minute.
the longer you can sustain this range while doing cardio the more stored calories you will burn
Last week I hit 142. I was so fucking excited. I haven’t gotten on the scale since then, but I think I’m maintaining it because I can tell a huge difference in the way my body looks in my clothes. When I started I was 155.
Tae Bo got old real quick… the only way I’m losing weight is that I regulate what I eat, and the quantity. I probably max out at 1200 calories a day, and I’m not really hungry. I only eat whenever I’m REALLY hungry, and so far I’ve found that I can’t eat nearly as much as I used to, even if I try I’m STUFFED after a very small meal.
I’m hoping to get some information today about taking Tae Kwon Do or Karate or something like that to get me and Mike working out.
anything else anyone would like to know feel free to ask. im on a frickin’ roll over here
cool info, thanks for the response. I have to do a little homework now and figure out my next step.
thanks
im really glad to hear your making progress and quick progress at that! your going to be amazed at the fat youll lose once you start adding cardio into your exercise routine.
the reason you cant eat as much is because your stomach shrinks when you start consuming smaller portions which is a great help in regulating food intake. it becomes very hard to over eat at any given meal
when your out looking for group exercise look around for places that offer some of all of these: yoga, pilates, group aerobics and circuit training.
i can understand that tae-bo alone in front of a TV gets really boring so maybe try taking a tae bo group class at a gym! the people around you and atmosphere will keep you motivated
EDIT:
ohh ya i dont know if you know this but Tae-Bo is called Cardio Kick Boxing at most gyms :)
welcome
if you need any help figuring it out or maybe wanna me to type out my full workout so you have something to base yours off of just let me know
To be honest I’ll be happy at 135lbs. I have a larger frame that most women I think (never been a size 0). At 155 I was in the yellow zone of the body mass index chart, so that was not good. Mike and I are talking about me doing some things that will definetly give me a workout (I’m going to get my EMT and join the firestation I think, as long as the by-laws allow it).
I found that while I was exercising, I had this thought that because I was working out I could eat whatever I wanted, because I was burning calories, and it wasn’t working for me at all. I would pig out on chips and snacks all day and wonder why I wasn’t losing any weight… lol.
lol
rememeber that losing fat is expending more calories than you take in during a day.
I have been trying to lose some of the mangut I accumulated since starting an office job a little over a year ago. I changed how I eat for the most part. I knowticed the mangut quit accumulating and is slowly going away. I know if I get hard core and but out crazy cardio everyday and diet like crazy I can shred up but I cannot bring myself to do that. I want to start doing more things since the weather is nice now and hopefully that can get me more tone.
Weight training wise I am about as strong as i have ever been but my gains are coming slow. I try to switch it up a bit and for the past 2-3 weeks have been staying in the 12-15 rep range. Yesterday I strted out pretty normal (9-10 reps) then worked up to heavy (3-4 reps). I would love to see more size and cut up quite a bit. So maybe i will train like a manchild and try to do a lot more cardio…but that is kinda hard when you are busy.
i forgot to add this before but WATER INTAKE is a another very important factor in losing weight and looking lean. the FDA reccomends eight cups(8 oz) of water a day which is 64 oz or a half gallon of water. this guidleine might be enough for you average person but is only about half of what an active persons body requires. most trainers and knowledgeable fitness enthusiasts will tell you that the minimum is a gallon of water a day. it really seems like alot of water at first but after a while a gallon is almost nothing to drink in a day.
aside from that fact that your body is made up of mostly water and you need it to absorb most vitamins there are other reason to drink more water. drinking more water will help your body flush toxins and help keep your joints lubricated.
Staying hydrated will also help you lose excess water weight by stopping your body from storing water. when your body doesnt recieve enough water in a day you will start to store water kinda like a camel. so giving your body all the water it needs plus more will stop it from storing those few extra pounds of water.
my advice on drinking water is to always have a bottle of water with you. i bought a 32oz Pro Spirit water bottle from dicks and constantly carry it with me. i usually end up drinking 6 or 7 bottles of tap water a day because i dont believe in bottled water…
now what everyone says is that when i drink all this water im constantly going to the bathroom. i know that its frowned upon by some employers and its sometimes very inconvientient to stop and go every 20 minutes. this is usually for only the first few weeks of drinking alot of water because your body is cleansing itself of toxins and waste that have accumulated over time. it will stop being so frequent although it will be greater than before you started consuming so much water.
Jimmy
well see you made a general assumption that most people make and its wrong. :)
you dont need to go ALL OUT with cardio and dieting to lose lots of weight. you can get yourself down to a relatively lean state while maintaining your mass with very little effort. its not about quantity its about quality of your workouts so training more intelligently will help you achieve your goals.
i know that most people believe a bodybuilder or a physically fit person spends numerous hours in the gym but its not true. its a rule of thumb that you dont spend more than an hour in the gym excluding cardio. you only have so much energy to train your body with and after its depleted your just going through the motions.
my maintence resistance workouts are quick and efficent. they only last 25-30 minutes because i cut down on the rest periods and stop all the side bullshit that happens at most gyms. i cant stand seeing people spend 30 minutes bench pressing. its takes at the most 45 seconds to perform a set and then 45 seconds to a minute of rest so it should take 8-10 minutes max to perform that exercise! also people that want to stand around and talk in the gym, thats irritating as fuck too!
if you go in there with your goals on your mind and dont get caught up in teh bullshit youll be in and out in no time! the only thing you cant speed up is the cardio, if your doing a hour of cardio then your there for an hour.
dieting…
most people think you need to start eating salads, chicken breast and tofu to get lean but its not really like that. i mean for your average person to get into the low single digits of bodyfat it takes an extreme effort. for your average person to get lean and tight just cutting some of the junk out of your diet and reducing the portions of food you eat will dramatically effect your weight loss efforts!
like is said its not that hard, its just being smarter :)