What's up Champ! I'm Vince Del Monte of GeneExpressionTraining.com and
in this video, big Dan here is going to teach us how to
build massive traps in three moves. Alright. This video is absolutely awesome.
You guys are going to love it. If you want bigger traps, if you want the
biggest traps in town get ready.
So before we get into the workout, I met Dan very recently when I moved here to Etobicoke. His gym here Torque Barbell
Etobicoke is just like four minutes from my house alright. So I came in here and I seen
this guy doing some crazy crazy workouts and I said man I'd love to train with this
guy, but I'm gonna have to to step up my game so we just finally teamed up here and Dan's
going to take us through his trap building workout, and before we do that,
why don't you tell them a bit about who you are. [Dan] sure my name is Dan Petkovesk.
I'm a professional power lifter. I compete at 198 pounds.
I'm currently 3 weeks out from powerlifting meet which is USA Nationals
in Las Vegas so all my training right now is heavy. You know lots of accessory
work focusing on weaknesses and specifically for the deadlift,
we like to bring up our traps. [Vince] There you go. So I asked Dan, I said man what do you do
for your traps. So I said let's film a video. Forget it. Don't tell me. Let's show
you guys. So this is the workout. Dan's going to walk us through it. I'm going to
try and keep pace here we're going to give you guys some great tips to think
about while you're doing this so that you guys don't get hurt and so that your
traps grow faster than ever. [Dan] So basically here we got barbells or Smith Machine
shrugs and as you can see we got one plate on the bar and we like to start it
out light so we can make sure we're getting full muscle contraction, full
stretch, full contraction at the top and then as the sets go on we're increasing
the weight still trying to go through the range of motion as much as possible
but obviously as things gets heavier we're going to maybe use a little bit of
momentum but we're still going to maintain that contraction at the top.
So as you can see here now the bar is in front of my body
and what we're trying to do is we're trying to pull the weight right up to
our ears. Right. We want to build our traps going upwards here, whereas in the
next set you'll see where we have the bar behind us and now we're behind so
we're going to be focused on contracting our lats back and pulling the bar up and
kind of behind our head almost and that's going to build thickness through
your back in your traps. The way we break down this - the sets and the rep scheme
here, we're keeping at 20 reps and we're doing three sets in front, three sets
behind us as a superset. So as you can see I'll do a set in front, Vince will do a
set in front, we immediately switch over. I do a set
behind the back, he does a set behind the back and then we rest. Each time we
do the next set, we're increasing weight and obviously you want to do things with
good form, but you still want to maximize your weight, but as long as soon as you
start feeling that - that you can't contract the muscle anymore, you're not
really in control. That's your maximum. That's where you're
going to stop it. You're not going to add any more weight beyond that.
Okay so Exercise 2 - we call it wheelbarrow traps or trap machine.
Basically as in the first, the first two exercises, we had the bar in front and
behind, so now we're keeping our hands neutral and we're going straight up to
the ceiling and we're trying to do a hybrid of both in front up to the ears
as well as in the back. So you're contracting your lats and you're really
trying to use a little bit of momentum here because we're going to load this
one up pretty heavy. So as you can see, again, we start light we're going to end
up doing six sets. We're going to keep the reps around ten. If we have to drop
down to five at the top that's fine, we will, and then we'll finish off with a
drop set. So as you'll see, you know that we had a plate every set starting at one
going up to five and then on the very last set we're going to strip it all the
way down back to one. So I know Vince is always talking about not using momentum
and letting the muscles do the work and really going through the full range,
getting the stretch and contraction, I one hundred percent agree with that, but with
the movement like this, when we're you know, deadlifting seven, eight hundred
pounds, we're going to need to use a little bit
of momentum to get that weight going and we want to get as close to that 700 as
possible. So with five plates on the bar, it's going to be around 495- 500 and
at that point yeah we're going to be using a little bit momentum but we're
still maintaining that squeeze at the top.
[Vince] Yeah you blur the lines, but like you're competing. Like you're an
athlete. Athletes have to get fast. They have to explode, so, but what
I'm trying to teach them with building muscle tissue, it's not necessarily
needed. Sometimes there's more risk than benefit. So hat's my point. [Dan] Yeah something
that I strongly believe in is that there's two ways to train. You can train
the movement, and you can train the muscle. So for example on a bench press,
you know, you're training the movement. But then when you're doing cable flyes,
you're training the muscle, and so that's the differentiation is with with
athletes, we're training a movement there, we're still getting a muscle activation,
but we're being performance based athletes, we're going to need to move some
heavy weight. Okay. So the last exercise I guess it's called seated bent
over dumbbell row. You could call it whatever you want, but essentially you're
sitting on the end of a bench, you're going to be leaning forward. You want to
keep your head back. As soon as we drop your head now you're going to be using
too much rear delt so we want to keep your head back so that you're able to
contract your traps upwards and back. So you can see as I'm leaning forward I'm
trying to keep my forearms perpendicular to the floor. I'm not going out wide like
a rear delt and I'm not keeping them in activating my biceps. I'm trying to get
all the the movement coming from my rear delt or sorry my upper traps, mid traps
and a little bit of rhomboids as well. With this exercise again you know we're
going to keep the reps around ten maybe twelve. We're going to increase the
weight each set. There seems to be a common theme here always increasing
weight as long as you're maintaining good form so we're going to start here
at fifty five and then maybe we end the the workout or this exercise after four
set of ten to twelve we might end at 85 or 95 so we're making 10 to 20 pound
jumps each set. So as you'll see here on our last set, we work up about 10 12 15
reps and we immediately drop down to 25's. I don't know if you guys have seen the
video about Vince talking about man makers and finishing strong, so on our very
last set we're going to do another drop here. So we're going to do like I said 10
to 12 reps. Maximize that contraction, drop the
weight, and bang out 10 to 15 more finishing strong. [Vince] so that's it guys. How
to build massive traps in three moves. Thanks so much Dan. Now for programming,
what would you recommend. a couple times a week or what? [Dan] Yeah I'd say 2 to 3 times
a week. You know you're going to be pretty sore after that first, second
third workout. [Vince] Start of the workout? End of the workout? [Dan] I would start
it off on like a back or shoulders day just to really get that bump and it's
one of those things where people you know I always tell people train abs at
the beginning of your workout because probably at the end of it you're going
to skip it because you're tired so if your focus is on building traps do it at
the beginning your workout so you know you get it in there. [Vince] It's so funny I said
that I actually didn't think you would have said that because I taught, I've
been teaching this for years and I always get you know a bit of backlash
that's called the principle of prioritization right you always see the
most improvement from what you put first when you're fresh. That's cool then. [Dan] yeah
for sure.
[Vince] Again we're here at Torque Barbell in 217 00:07:29,270 --> 00:07:34,490 Etobicoke. If you guys live in
Toronto, this is Toronto's strongest gym. You guys got to get down here. Come train
with us. You cantrain with all the fit people here. It's an awesome environment and Dan
tell them what did we just pop today for you man. [Dan] Yeah my YouTube cherry. Yes
thanks for having me on man. My first time here. [Vince] Yeah his first time on a YouTube
channel. I'm sure you guys will see a lot more of him. That's going to be
depending on what you guys want si let us know if you want upcoming videos with
both of us, body parts, tips, what kind of stuff can we help you with to achieve
your best physique. Alright and again Dan, I have a bad habit of rambling.
So we'ree just going to wrap it up there. Thanks so much for watching. Like this
video. Share this video. We'll see you guys next time.