The trapezius muscles are involved in exercises for the shoulders and back. Learn how and when to train each part for maximum development.
Unless you’re a beginner, your workouts are divided by body part and you use a series of exercises to target a specific muscle group from different angles and force maximum growth. This approach is justified in most cases, but the trapezius muscles, spread over the entire surface of the back, give rise to a certain problem.

Has anyone ever told you, “Today is my trapeze day”? I have never met such people. What sets the trapezius apart from the rest of the muscles is that the diamond-shaped muscle is made up of three regions—upper, middle, and lower—and each performs a specific function. And although the trapezius is one muscle, athletes often work out parts of it on different training days. This is a little confusing, so let’s isolate the functions of each part of the trapezius muscle in order to finally decide when they are still best to train.
When you imagine pumped-up trapeziums, the upper part of them between the neck and shoulders most likely comes to mind. When you raise the shoulder blades or rotate them up, the upper beams turn on to the maximum. We make a similar movement when we shrug our shoulders in ordinary life. Apart from shrugs, many delt exercises, especially side raises and chin rows, work the upper traps almost directly, so it makes sense to end your workouts with single-joint shrugs. Therefore, the upper trapezius muscles are best trained on shoulder day.

The middle part of the trapezium mainly pulls the shoulder blades together, and this movement is called retraction. You are mimicking retraction in the gym when you perform seated lower pulldowns. (And if you don’t bring your shoulder blades together during the pull, you’re stealing from the middle of the trapezoid!) Pulls are usually done on back day, but the movement also works other muscle groups. To better isolate the trapezius muscles, perform a seated row without bending your elbows (straight-arm lower pull-down). Just bring the shoulder blades together and spread them so that the range of motion is minimal. It turns out that the average trapezoid is better to train on the day of the back.
To completely confuse everything, let’s look at the lower trapezoid. Their function is to rotate the shoulder blades downward, and this movement occurs in the initial phase of the thrust of the upper block, another exercise for the back. Therefore, you can successfully isolate your lower traps by performing 10-15 cm upper pulldowns with straight arms. The lower fibers are also involved in lifting the deltas in front of you on an incline bench face down, and this is already an exercise for the shoulders! Even in the snatch, an Olympic exercise that involves the whole body, the lower trapezoid fibers work.

So, where does the trapeze fit in your training split? Variably. If you’re not working your back and shoulders on the same day, chances are you’ll be hitting different sections of the muscle in your workouts for different target groups, and this is ideal. Just remember that for a full workout, you need to use the entire palette of movements. Too often athletes are limited to scars. It’s wrong and now you know why!