Fix OVERACTIVE UPPER TRAPS - SHOULDER BLADE DEPRESSION Exercises

3 Exercises to relax overactive upper traps & activate the opposing muscle group (the shoulder depressors)

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Traps (trapezius) & under traps are a muscle group that are very big & are going to be involved in a lot of movements . Before you start thinking your chops should never be working, remember these are big muscles that need to work in a lot of motions that you're doing with your shoulder. If you feel like every time you do anything you are in a shoulder up, elevated position, you may need to take some steps to get these to relax so the other muscles of your shoulders can do their job as well.

Exercise 1 – SEATED SHOULDER DEPRESSION

This is a basic & easy exercise. Sit down on a couch or ground just as long as you are seated. Put your legs out & put your hands right at the side of the back of your butt, next to where your hips are seated on the ground.

Get the chest up without over extending the back & flaming the ribcage. Make sure the chest is popped up to where the shoulders are back. Press the hands down into this table. This forces the shoulder away from the ear & creating some space & the shoulders are being forced down. Hold the position of pressing the shoulders down away from my neck.

We’re forcing the shoulders into depression. If you come up here & feel the upper traps, they're going to be very relaxed in this position & those muscles that depress your the shoulder like the serratus anterior, the rhomboids, these muscles are going to be a lot more active in this position. We’re training these muscles to hold that shoulder depression to relax the traps a little bit more. Hold this position for 30 seconds & start working your way up to a minute.

EXERCISE 2 – SIDE SEATED SHOULDER DEPRESSION

Get seated & arm bar the ground & sink down into this shoulder but then from this position that we don't want when these traps become to add active & we're sinking into that shoulder & work on pushing the ground away. Hold that position for a few seconds & sink back down. Then push away hard. We want to hold this position for a few second. The serratus anterior is going to be doing a lot of the work so you should feel that kind of working right under the armpit.

To make this more challenging simply move the hips away from the arm a little bit. Keep the elbow straight. Don't sink? into it elbows straight foam arm bar I'm stiff arming the ground . These muscles that control shoulder are going to become active with shoulder being in a more downward position.

EXERCISE 3 - TIGHT SHOULDER BREATHING

It's probably the most important exercise so you shouldn't skip it. All this exercises is breathing. What happens when you become a shallow breather SO you're just breathing into your chest. We’re breathing into the mouth, just breathing into this chest muscle become active. to do your breathing to go through your respiratory system that aren't supposed to be active we have this PEC minor in this the scalenes & these upper traps working to help you breathe when really they should be relaxed during your breathing.

It’s VERY important to calm down these overactive traps. Lay down on the ground & prop the feet down on the ground so knees are up. Don’t force the upper back & the lower back down to the ground. Nice & straight which is going be tucked. Look straight up ahead & breathe down into the belly & then after reaching the belly Fill up air into the chest cavity & exhale all the way out. Do 3 breaths & you may not get comfortable until that 3rd breath. It started into the belly portion & then worked it’s way up to the chest & I could inhale is complete torso. After that I could exhale all the way out.

Things to be aware of is not arching the back & letting just that chest filled. We also don't want to wear too much with the shoulders forward. We’re still breathing only into the chest & letting everything relax to where we can just full breathe throughout the whole cavity. Take 10 breaths to start & work up to where you could take breath in a row full inhale exhale. The goal is after those breath to still have overactive traps still feel like your chapter tight.

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[abigaillarkin]

6 months pregnant and dealing with constant overactive traps! Led to bad neck and back soreness. This worked like nothing else! Thank you!

[joshjackson]

I’ve been searching for a video like this for years as my traps have been active in everything I do even the tiny tasks. Thank you!

[BodyFixExercises]

👍Adding an external hand position (Finger facing away from the body with thumbs facing forward, not in) for the first two exercises would be a good addition. Our internal shoulder rotators tend to be overactive too. An externally rotated hand position would help avoid shoulder conditions like rotator cuff issues.

[metallifan]

I have been suffering from an overactive trap for over a year now that has cost me a ton of gains since i wasn’t able to train properly due to trap and shoulder tightness. Also. Lots of time and money with physical therapists to help me give me a proper diagnosis (they thought it was a shoulder tear). Just from the two exercises alone, my trap is already feeling infinitely better. Im going to start doing these everyday and see how my trap is in a month. Feeling very confident. You are a liffesaver!!

[mrymdz]

thanks to you i fixed my antrior pelvic tilt easly in about 3 month .thank so much

[Dina-heuc]

ive watched SO many videos on how to relax my upper traps, I was about to give up because nothing was working for me then I found this and it's perfect, for once I can feel them relaxing. thank you so much!

[msjbaking]

I was so suprised! I've had huge traps for at least 2 years by now, and they always left me in pain. (I'm in college and have to carry a huge backpack everywhere) But thanks to this after one day they smoothed dramatically down. I can't thank you enough for this video!

[ad]

I've watched your videos & they have been THE BEST to help me fix my posture, compared to all the other people on youtube. I definitely being feeling a difference in my posture. Your methods are simple & make so much sense. THANK YOU STRENGTH SIDE!

[copernicus]

This is an excellent video. I was suffering from some shoulder impingement on my right side and dysfunctional biomechanics in several of my upper body lifts. The culprit? Tense upper traps. The exercises you suggest are very effective, though I prefer doing the second one standing and pushing my hand against the edge of a table. In any case, thanks very much. My shoulder is beginning to feel much better. Staying away from heavy shrugs for a while...

[Embodiedflor]

Thank you for this video ! I started lifting weights about a year ago and as a person who is very high stress my upper body is always so tense and it’s caused my traps to grow like crazy, I’m going to try doing this short excercise everyday to see if it helps with that

[StephiePpn]

I think you just literally changed my life. I’ve had insane trap pain on and off for years. I don’t know who taught me this, but for I’ve been practicing sucking my belly IN even on the in breath!! The reasoning was so that you don’t build your abs out. Wth! A trainer told me that I don’t breathe while I work out a couple of years ago and I was confused because i thought I was. I really can’t thank you enough. I feel like from here on out im going to see a big improvement in pain.

[tommywikstrom]

Great video. My upper traps are killing me so big thanks 👍

[Dubuajay]

This seems to be fixing my shoulder impingement and nerve popping pain in elbow. Exercise #2!!!!

[nickc.]

Dude this is the video that got me started with your channel (on my other account) and I think you had maybe like 20k subs….you’re almost at 1 million….CONGRATS!!!

[maikjansen]

I hope this helps, my left trap is so dominant I can't do bench press anymore because he takes over and I couldn't keep my shoulderbladrs together

[Aandersson]

My left ear really enjoyed this video. Thanks for the tips :D

[derfalsche]

For more than a year I have been doing every exercise to release my back pain, rarely something helped -especially in the long run. Doing the breathing exercise and breathing properly into my stomach have released my pain within a half day. I suddenly feel completely different and much more relaxed I am gonna practice the breathing every day now.

[bryrst]

This is witchcraft 😲 I've had a ton of trouble with my shoulders shrugging up on bench press and doing these exercises every day has (a) relaxed my tight traps, and (b) allowed my scapula to depress while benching. Thanks!

[MrStrutxD]

i wonder why your channel doesnt have many subscribers, it's a good channel!

[sixzerozero]

Your videos are more informative than any Arnold Schwarzenegger video or even those of Bruce Lee because it describes human anatomy so much more and tells the relationship between the scalenes and the diaphragm.