Behind neck press or upright rows.

Stu21Ldn

i think garys point was that behind the neck presses do not direct target the traps like upright rows, so its difficult to compare the two exercises.

divie

Fair enougth then, SORRY MY BAD.

garrilla

divie if you dont understand what i mean then ask me to explain. i never said upright rows dont work i said there crap they force your joints into unatural positions and as the weight increases the wear n tear on those joints gets worse its not instant injury but sustained long term damage which you may regret in the future. sounds to me like your mind was made up before you posted so why bother asking.

for future reference i never bullshit.

stu thanks, nice to see some people take the time to read through the posts and understand them without over reacting

GTForce

The clean is an excellent exercise for the traps.

If you performed it with a press then you would be getting the best of both. The clean & jerk (or press) is a phenomenal exercise, the only requirement is the patience to learn, coordination to perform , and you must have flexibilty in your wrists.

You can perform it as a full-body exercise (from the floor, w/the overhead press) or, specifically for traps, you can do standing power cleans.

An additional benefit is that the rotator-cuff muscles (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, subscapularis, and teres minor) will be strengthened as opposed to potentially damaged with the behind the neck press (which primarily works the delts anyway). Another benefit is muscular endurance, a challenging set of 10 pwer cleans will leave you more spent than any set of shrugs or overhead presses ever would.

That said, to answer your initial question, I would go with shrugs every time over behind the neck press.

Have you tried shrugs holding a barbell behind your back? You can perform them in a Smith machine rack and lean away from the bar so your traps get an awesome stretch. Holding the barbell at a level just under your bottom, you lean forward (kind of like that skinny twit Leonardo Di Caprio at the front of the Titanic). Done correctly, you will defenitely feel those.

Good luck, GTForce

razg

garry, I see your point regarding upright rows with a straight bar (in terms of wrists) - do you think it's still bad posture using an ez-bar? Using that, it doesnt seem particularly unnatural.

divie

To be honest i cant see the probelem with upright rows nor do i bielieve there is one.
I think a lot of the complaints on this exercisse are just down to people trying to go mad with how much they lift doing 4-6 reps at so heavy maywell cause probs with theese, however i always do a minimum of 8 reps as doing 4-6 dont give me a pump.

garrilla

true its better with an e z bar but i find it still pulls the wrist n elbow joints. i've injured me left bicep twice doing them and each time it took months to be able to train anything like properly again so i hate the exercise.

9519sam

what about dumbells?

crazycal1

neither are safe-stick to deadlifts and chin religiously-if had a suitable bench i would do incline shrugs also