Lower Trapezius

The trapezius muscle is located to the middle and upper back, and like its name suggests, is an irregular four sided muscle. Whilst the muscle doesn’t have separate heads (like the deltoid for example); its upper, middle and lower areas do engage differently during various movements of the scapula and are therefore often referred to as separate entities.

The lower fibres of the trapezius are actively engaged during retraction and upward rotation of the scapula. This means we can target the muscle with rowing variations, such as dumbbells rows, or seated cable rows, as well as overhead presses such as the barbell shoulder press.

Exercises

• Bent over row
• Cable row
• High row
• One arm dumbbell row
• Row pull down
• Seated lever row
• T-bar row

Other names

• Traps