3 Great Exercises for Big Traps

When we think about traps and training traps usually it's shrugs that pops right into your head. While shrugs are a great trap-builder and should be done there are some other exercises which are also great at targeting traps. Here are 3 great exercises for big traps.

Deadlifts

Deadlifts are such a great mass-builder for your entire posterior chain. Part of that chain being your traps. Traps should be trained through different planes of movement and deadlifts do just that. Imagine all the angles of strain your traps are put under throughout the entire movement of a deadlift. From the bent over position all the way through to the upright position.

Cleans

Cleans are definitely an underestimated movement for training traps. It's a powerful movement and involves your entire upper body but especially the traps. I feel the best pump in my traps after a good clean session. The hang, training the traps, the shrugging part of the movent, traps again. The nature of the clean means using momentum as well as strength and power to clean that bar up and as so you can move some heavy weight.

Facepulls

People tend to forget that the traps aren't just the chunky parts at the top, they also connect much lower down the back. They need training on a horizontal plane as well as through the vertical. With the facepulls you should really focus on squeezing at the end of the concentric phase and this will help build thickness in your traps.

I really hope this post has helped you out and given you some tips and idea's to improve your workouts. Please do subscribe to the blog and follow me on social media: Instagram and Twitter.

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Fitness Food - Muscle Mousse Cheesecake

A lovely decadent and versatile protein cheesecake using the amazing Muscle Mousse, for only 307 Calories a pop and a whopping 33g of Protein.

A crumbly biscuit base, followed by a layer of blended banana sweetened with stevia, a layer of Butterscotch protein cheesecake and topped off with sliced banana. You can use any biscuit you want for the base and any flavour of Muscle Mousse. The banana is an optional extra, and can also be replaced with any other fruit to complement the flavour of cheesecake you've gone for, strawberries and raspberries go well in this recipe.

You will need:

Equipment -

• 2 serving glasses
• 1 hand whisk
• 1 hand blender
• 1 glass jug
• cling film/sandwich bag
• 1 medium sized mixing bowl
• 1 spatula

Ingredients - 

• 300g 0% Fat Greek Yoghurt
• 1 serving of Muscle Mousse 
• 1 Banana
• 2 small biscuits
• 1 teaspoon of Stevia/sweetener

As you can see there aren't a lot of ingredients at all, it's a very quick and easy recipe. 

Follow the steps below to make your cheesecakes:

1. Grab your biscuits and pop them into a sandwich bag or wrap them in cling film. 

Once the biscuits are sealed inside, bash them up, go crazy. You can make them into a fine crumb or leave it slightly lumpy, however you'd prefer your bases to be.

Once you've bashed up your biscuits, equally distribute the crumbs into your serving glasses and prod the crumbs down with your fingers or with the back of a spoon. 

Base - Completed.

2. Now for the next layer. Cut your banana in half.

Add half of your banana into your glass jug with 1 teaspoon of Stevia.

Using your hand blender (or just a fork if you don't have a hand blender) blend up the banana with the Stevia.

Next, pour it out in equal amounts on top of your biscuit base.

3. Now for the main part. The cheesecake of omnom-ness! Grab your mixing bowl, yoghurt, Muscle Mousse and hand whisk.

Add 300g of yoghurt and 2 scoops of Muscle Mousse to the bowl and whisk it up.

Using the spatula to scrape the bowl, add the mixture in equal measures to your serving glasses.

4. Next, the topping. With the other half of your banana, slice it up and arrange the slices on top of your cheesecake.

Place your cheesecakes in the fridge for a minimum of about 25 minutes to allow the cheesecake to set.

5. After they're set, they're ready to eat! Top them off with some calorie free syrup!

Here's the final product. ENJOY! I'll put the macro's/calories below for each individual cheesecake and for the mixture as a whole if you wanted to make just one big one. 

If you liked this recipe and want to see more please + this post, comment, and follow me on twitter.

Thanks!

Macro's/Calories for individual cheesecakes (Calories/Carbs/Fat/Protein/Fibre):

Macro's/Calories for whole mixture (Calories/Carbs/Fat/Protein/Fibre):

Muscle Mousse Review

Muscle Mousse - Protein Mousse Dessert.

Today I'm going to review Muscle Mousse, which is a protein mousse dessert, just think protein shake that sets. I first came across Muscle Mousse at the Body Power Expo 2014, tried a sample and bought a tub straight away!

I'll go over a few points about Muscle Mousse to give you a better idea about it.

Taste (5 out of 5) - 

Muscle Mousse comes in 6 flavours, and I've been lucky enough to try 2 of them.

Peanut-Choc Caramel: This was the first tub I bought. It tastes a lot like Snickers or a Babyruth bar; nutty, chocolatey, caramelly, mmmmmmm, amazing. It tastes really decadent and not at all like any other protein shake type product I've ever tried. It is on the sweet side but I don't think you'd get this unless you had a sweet tooth anyway!

Butterscotch: Fantastic. Really, really amazing flavour. They actually had samples of this at Body Power which made me want to buy this product. They had actually sold out of this flavour though which is why I got the Peanut-Choc Caramel, I was disappointed until I got it home and tried it, both are awesome. It tastes like Butterscotch Angel Delight (the best Angel Delight flavour in my opinion!) and it isn't as sweet as the Peanut-Choc Caramel.

I can't wait to try every single flavour... White chocolate next I think.

Versatility (5 out of 5) -

The versatility of this product is absolutely great. Awesome as a mousse. Awesome as a thick shake if you don't let it set (sounds kinda weird, tried it, actually really good). It can also be made into a healthy high protein cheesecake (recipe coming... check back soon). You can mix it up with water, milk, almond milk, all tastes great. I'd be interested to try chocolate milk with the chocolate or banana Muscle Mousse, or different flavoured waters. I'll let you know how that goes.

Packaging (4 out of 5) - 

I love the packaging for this product. It's super simple and effective. It was great seeing the Muscle Mousse Moose at Body Power, although I felt super sorry for the guy inside as it was really hot without the costume on top! My only criticism is the size! I want more, bigger tubs please!

Calorie/Macro Breakdown - 

Each 50g serving (2 scoops) has:

175 Calories
30g Protein
12g Carbs
<1g Fat

The product has a good carb to protein ratio, and it's as you'd expect for such a tasty product. I would've actually expected much more fat, so I'm really pleased with the sub 1g.

Conclusion (4.8 out of 5) -

This is an awesome product. Will I re-buy it? YES. Do I use it everyday? No. At the moment I can't really afford to use this product every day, it sells for around £20-£25 for just 15 servings. So I'd rather keep it and use it as a treat for myself. A treat for cutting or bulking in my opinion.

Great product, try it out!