Developing the front of the traps

I have been doing weights for about 2 years and have shown good progress. Am definitely a lot bigger – and still pretty lean. This is a little hard to explain – but one thing I have noticed about my upper body is that it seems that the bone that runs along the top of my pecs before you hit the traps (the clavicle??) seems to be very prominent, much more so than on other guys. Which means I am concentrating developing the upper pecs and the traps to make it less noticable. But it seems that most of my trap growth is upwards and behind – not in the front where I need. Are there any specific trap exercises or techniques that anyone can recommend?

Develop your upper chest more. I don’t think there is such a muscle as ‘front traps’.

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I don’t have any anatomy charts here with me but I am almost positive the traps do not connect with the collar bones. Upper pec developement is the way to go for making that less noticable.

As you get bigger and thicker it will ‘appear’ the traps come around the front of the neck to cover that area, but I just don’t think it is anatomically the case.

KB,
There is an exercise I learned along time ago. My friends and I call it the salt shaker. Take a lite dumbell in each hand while standing. Next raise your right dumbell going towards your left ear, like you are throwing salt over your left shoulder. Then alternate with the left dumbell toward your right ear. Squeeze the dumbell up, don’t throw it over your shoulder. This will hit the front of your traps.

Travis, Your’e joking right?

You need a good anatomy book. that bone is your collar bone. the traps insert behind it. no matter how big your traps are they will never cover it in any way. they only might make it look small compared to your trap development. you need to expand the size of your chest, specifically your upper chest. try excersizes such as flat bench, incline bench, incline fly using slow eccentric tempos and 40-70 seconds time under tension.

My collar bones used to stick out too. Then I started lifting and have managed to cover them with slabs of muscle.

I would suggest working the traps with shrugs, power cleans, snatches, clean pulls and snatch pulls (as long as you know how to properly execute those exercises). Poliquin and King have some trap specialization articles on t-mag. Do a search for them!

Also, the biggest way to cover them up is to develop some muscle on your chest. Various incline movements work well including incline bench presses (barbell and dumbbell), decline bench presses to the neck, push presses, overhead presses and incline flyes.

You can do it!