60% of a bull’s mass is in his traps.

Hey guys, Shrugthug here.

Let me go off the record in saying this –

I don’t actually think my traps are that big. Well, they aren’t big ENOUGH. I admit they are disproportionate to the rest of my body, sure, and they are probably one of the only remotely visible pieces of evidence of the fact that I lift weights. The bottom line is I weigh 175lbs and this just isn’t a significant amount of mass in general.

But as you all know, I am aggressively working to rectify this.

Justin and I have had several discussions about the need for me to develop more muscular bodyweight, particularly in my upper body, but basically, it’s generally been agreed that I need to fill out 85kg with some quality weight, and eventually 94kg if I’m planning on doing anything cool.

There have been disagreements between us about how I should go about adding that mass though (paraphrased):

Brent: so i want to get more yoked, man

Justin: Oh yeah? What are you planning on doing?

Brent: probably some shrugs, Bill Starr style. i want bigger traps

Justin: (sigh) Your traps are big enough. You have the traps of a 215lbs guy on a 175lbs body. Maybe you should hit some other areas.

Brent: what do you mean?

Justin: I don’t know, maybe the rest of your upper body OTHER than your traps?

We’ve had some other disputes regarding this.

Brent: look, all i’m saying is, i don’t see why there’s a problem with me wanting to be yoked like a bull

Justin: There isn’t, but a big yoke requires the body of a bull, not a calf.

Well, here is my response to THAT:



Shrugging for 17 reps isn’t really standard ops for me. It was kind of a special day since I was training at the WFAC with Mike, and I wanted to get a PR set of 10 in. I typically have been doing these shrugs for a top set of 5 once a week, but I wanted to have some fun. I wasn’t counting reps; I think I was more concerned with telling myself I WANNA BEAT ‘EM. BEAT EM. BEAT EM. BEAT EM! with each rep. I figured at some point that I’d done about 10, and so I did two more “just to be sure.”

I asked Mike if I got 10. He said, “Seventeen. Close though.”

As my friend Chris says, I was feeling reckless.