Dumbbell Shrugs Exercise

Starting Position
Begin by standing with your feet shoulder width apart and your knees slightly bent. Hold the dumbbells to your side with your palms facing inward.

Action
EXHALE: Slowly lift your shoulders straight up, keeping your arms straight. Hold for 1-2 seconds.

INHALE: Slowly lower down to starting position. Try doing 2 sets of 10-12 repetitions.

* Rotating the shoulders like this as you raise them will work all parts of the trapezius. The upper part is worked at the top of the movement while the middle and lower parts of the trapezius as well as the rhomboids receive the effort at the bottom of the movement when the shoulder blades are squeezed together.

* Using heavy weights will make it impossible to fully rotate the shoulders, which is the ultimate purpose of this exercise and is what differentiates it from barbell shrugs. As a result, you should keep in mind that this movement is more about taking your trapezius through a full range of motion than it is about using heavy weights. In this sense, this is a good exercise to include as part of a warmup or cool-down.

Exercise may be perform standing perfectly upright or very slightly bent over. Since this movement becomes more difficult as full shoulder elevation is achieved, height criteria for shoulder elevation may be needed. For example, raising shoulders until slope of shoulders become horizontal may be considered adequate depending upon individual body structure and range of motion with lighter weight.