Exercise · Shoulders

Prone Y raise

Face down, arms angled overhead in a Y, you lift the arms a few inches off the floor. The target is the lower trapezius — the long lower third of the trapezius that runs from the mid-back up to the shoulder blade and helps turn it upward as the arm rises. Momentum's upper-body chart lists the lower traps as commonly weak and the upper traps as commonly tight, which is the whole reason for the Y shape and the strict no-shrug rule: this is the activation step of the shoulder flow, and it only works if the muscle that is already overworking stays out of it.