My Home workout plan for Shoulder and Traps

Introduction: I'm little tired and stressed out today as I had to do a lot of works, including workouts and got so many problems regarding indexing my home workout plans that I started long before, continued for chest and triceps without equipment and plans with dumbbells, and google thinks all of these as same! 🤣 

But I'm sure after reading those articles, including my overall home workout plan you're somewhat aware of physical fitness and distinguish among the workouts and their differences. So, I'll write about my plans for Shoulder and Traps , the connecting muscle between shoulder and neck (these 2 go well together). You can look above for my workout chart and customize accordingly. By the way, I've also uploaded an YouTube workout video as well for your quick and easy understanding on this article, don't forget to visit! Let's go:

Shoulder: An easy way to workout for shoulder is that, whatever exercise you've done for chest, the hands' positions will now be moved a little wider so that the pressure of focus shifts to the shoulders. Just remember, shoulder muscles also consist of 3 parts in easy language: Front, Side/ lateral and Back/ rear portion. I'll write about the typical ones with dumbbells along with some my own customized plans without any equipment and of course with towels! 🤓

1.1 For the front deltoid, any lift-up in the front position will hit the front muscles of the shoulder. I shuffle 3 different workouts for hitting this area. The first one is Dumbbell Arnold Press which is a modified version of dumbbell overhead press. From a comfortable standing position, lift your dumbbells forward, contracting your front delts while twisting your hands so that your pals face outwards. Squeeze your delts at the top and slowly return to the starting position on repeat.

1.2 The next exercise I do for front deltoid is Dumbbell Front Raise. Here, contract your front deltoids to raise the dumbbells in front of you, stopping just above forehead level. pause for a moment, then slowly return to the starting position like below.

1.3 The last exercise I do is Handstand Push ups which is an advanced version of Angled Downward Push-up/ Pike Push-Up (Try these at first, for easier practice). Simply lie along your wall upright, placing your hands next to each other, bend your elbows out to the sides and lower your forehead towards the ground. Pause for a moment and contract your front delts to push yourself back to the starting position.

2.1 For the lateral/ side delts, start with Dumbbell Side Lateral Raises. Engage your core and keep your back straight as you raise your dumbbells to the side, keeping your palms facing your body. Keep raising them until they are parallel to the floor. You can keep your hands straight if the weight is light or bend your elbows a little if the weights are too heavy. Lower the weights back down to your side in a slow and controlled motion.

2.2 The next one in the list is Dumbbell Upright row. Again, engage your core, keep your back straight and you can incline a little depending on the weight. Slowly, bring the dumbbells up, bending your elbows out to the side, keeping your palms facing your body and keeping your hands slightly closer than shoulder-width apart. Keep your dumbbells close to each other and pull them until they reach your chin. Pause at the top, before slowly lowering the dumbbells and repeat.

3.1 For the back / rear deltoids, I keep my traditional towel workouts handy, with Towel Face Pull which is similar to that of Resistance Band Face Pull. Just keep a semi-long stretchable rope/ towel to a stable point, several inches above your head, grab it with an overhand grip, keeping your hands about six inches apart. Step back from the point with your arms extended in front of you until you feel tension in the towel. Keeping your back straight and elbows high, now pull the towel toward your face until your nose reach the anchor pint of towel which will practically take your body forward. Slowly reverse the move to return to the starting position, and repeat for reps.

3.2 The next item I follow is Dumbbell Reverse Fly. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, push your hips back and hinge forwards at the waist until your torso is almost parallel with the floor. Let your arms hang straight down, palms facing each other. Your your back flat and abs engaged, maintain a slight bend in your elbows as you raise your arms out to the sides until they reach shoulder level. Squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top of the movement. Slowly reverse the move to return the weights to the starting position, and repeat for reps.

Traps: Your biceps, triceps, shoulders might be popping but these are nothing without some bulging traps muscles to support your upper look. The muscle in this region as mentioned above falls between shoulders and neck also known as Trapezius. So, any workout that squeezes this portion should come in handy and I've sorted down 3 easy items from the list. Don't forget to watch this Workout Video for detailed demonstration!

1.1 The most common and great item to start with is Dumbbells Shrugs which will activate your upper and middle traps and help to build mass, strength and muscular endurance. Simply, take your weight beside your body, keep your hands straight and pull them by your neck muscles upwards, without moving any other thing at all. Take pause at the peak (for 2-15 seconds) and slowly bring them down on repeat. 

1.2 The next workout is similar to above, but done with the resistance of hands, and I call it Hands Shrugs. Simply lock your fingers of one hand to the other, in the back of your body (as shown in the picture), hold tight and pull downward so that you feel the tension. Now, assuming that you have weights in your hand, pull your traps muscles up, feel the resistance, pause for a few seconds and release the tension. Do it on repeat with alternate hands.

1.3 The next workout is also my customized item, which I call Hands Squeeze Up. Just keep your both hands up parallelly and then touch and cross over your fingers to squeeze your traps, so that it creates a cone '^' shape on top. Feel the tension, take a little pause and release the pressure again. 

1.4 Additional workouts you can lend from shoulder workouts are Towel Face Pull and Dumbbell Upright rows where you'll do the similar exercises, but putting the primary focus on your traps. 

 Conclusion: If you haven't read my previous articles on home workout yet, find those below:

1. My Home Workout Journey so far

2. Home workout Plan for Chest and Triceps with and without equipment

3. My Home workout plan for Shoulder and Traps

4. My Home Workout Plan for Back and Biceps

5. My Home Workout Plan for legs

6. My Home Workout Plan for Abs

That's all for today! I hope you found this article helpful and are preparing to lift your goals very soon! You can follow all these aforementioned items step by step, or make your own customized plan by combining those, that suit best for you! I'll be back again to write down more on next chapter. Head to my Youtube channel for these videos for better understanding!

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Till then, keep HYDRATED!