The Kelso shrug moves the shoulder blades back and together, not up. You rest your chest on a support, let the arms hang long, and squeeze the shoulder blades toward each other without bending the elbows. The range is short, and the arms do little more than hold the weight.
There are two common ways to set it up: on a chest-supported row machine or T-bar, or face-down on an incline bench with dumbbells or a barbell.
It is named after Paul Kelso, a strength writer who set out the idea in The Kelso Shrug System in the early 1990s and again in Kelso’s Shrug Book (2002). By his account it first appeared in print in 1968, in a note by Peary Rader in Iron Man. Kelso treated the Kelso shrug as a principle he applied to many exercises; the version most people now mean is the one he called the Lat Shrug.
Brolic lists it as Kelso Shrug. The dumbbell, barbell, machine and T-bar versions, and “chest-supported shrug”, are aliases of that one entry, so note the equipment in every session: the loads are not comparable between them.
Muscles worked
Pulling the shoulder blades together is scapular retraction. The middle trapezius and the rhomboids perform it, and the lower trapezius draws the blades down when you cue “down and back”, as Kelso did. That is why the exercise is filed under the upper back, which is how Brolic tags it.
The upper trapezius is not switched off. Studies of other retraction exercises record it working alongside the middle trapezius and rhomboids, so do not expect a Kelso shrug to leave the upper traps out. Those studies measured muscle activity in different positions; no study has examined the Kelso shrug itself, for activity, growth or strength.
Set it up
All you need is a pad to support your chest and a load you can hold at arm’s length. Choose the setup that feels most stable and comfortable, then stay with it.
- Row machine or T-bar. Use a chest-supported row machine or a chest-supported T-bar. Set the chest pad so that your arms hang straight and you can reach the handles at a full stretch. Merrick Lincoln’s machine version uses a wide overhand grip.
- Incline bench. Lie chest-down with your feet planted and a dumbbell in each hand, or a barbell under the bench. All Strength Training sets the bench at 30° and angles the thumbs in at about 45°, letting the hands rotate as they need to. Kelso suggested 45° or lower and noted that changing the angle changes which muscles join in. T Nation’s barbell version uses an underhand, shoulder-width grip.
- Bent over, unsupported. Kelso’s original stance: a barbell, a row position and a weight you can handle for about 8–10 reps. Your lower back holds the position, which makes it a different exercise to log.
Grip is a choice to make once and keep. Kelso felt an overhand grip put the emphasis on the middle of the traps and an underhand grip on the lower traps and lats. He wrote that the underhand style is the one many lifters came to call the Kelso shrug, “rightly or not”; his own name for the movement was the Lat Shrug. The grip effects are his impressions, not measurements.
Perform the shrug
Start from a full stretch, with the shoulder blades spread apart and the arms long. On a bench, let the weights reach toward the floor without rounding your spine over the pad. Then pull the blades back and together, aiming, in Kelso’s words, for “a point between your shoulder blades, not up toward your ears”.
Keep the arms straight. Kelso’s point was that the arms should not pull or push; a bend at the elbow turns the rep into a row. Dema Ascend allows a very slight bend at the top to finish the squeeze, on the condition that it is the same on every rep. Lincoln adds that the chest should not drive the rep by pressing into the pad.
Pause briefly at the top if you like (Kelso described an optional count of about four), then lower slowly back to the stretch. The handles or weights travel only a short distance.
If the movement is hard to find, practise it with little or no weight. Dema Ascend’s drill is to row all the way in, then straighten the arms while holding the shoulder blades together: that is the top position of the shrug.
How it differs from a shrug and a row
| Exercise | What moves | Arms | Body position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard shrug | Shoulders rise toward the ears | Straight | Standing |
| Kelso shrug | Shoulder blades pull back and together | Straight | Leaning forward or chest-supported |
| Chest-supported row | Shoulder blades retract and the elbows bend | Bend and travel back | Chest-supported |
Some coaching material uses “chest-supported shrug” for shrugging upward on an incline bench. That is a different movement, closer to a standard shrug. The Brolic alias means the retraction version described here; if yours goes up toward the ears, log it as a different exercise.
Keep the equipment variants separate
A 50 on a machine stack, a plate on a T-bar lever, a dumbbell in each hand and a loaded barbell are different loads for different setups. Keep one equipment choice per history, and record the bench angle or pad setting and the grip alongside the load.
Switching equipment mid-block, for example from the machine to dumbbells because the machine is taken, starts a new comparison. Note the substitution rather than continuing the old numbers.
Logging
This is a hypothetical entry for the machine version, not a target: three sets at the same stack weight, the same pad setting and a wide overhand grip.
| Set | Load | Reps | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 50 kg stack | 12 | Two-second squeeze at the top |
| 2 | 50 kg stack | 12 | Same pad height |
| 3 | 50 kg stack | 10 | Elbows started to bend: stopped |
That is 34 reps, with the reason the last set ended. “Elbows started to bend” is more useful next week than a rounded rep count, because it tells you the set stopped being a Kelso shrug. Kelso placed his shrugs after the exercise they most resemble, such as rows; Lincoln programs the machine version for three sets of 8–12 straight after rows. Both are coaching practice rather than tested prescriptions.
Use the free workout log for the setup notes and the weekly set tally to see how these sets add to your upper-back work.
Common questions
Is a Kelso shrug just a chest-supported row? No. In a row the elbows bend and the upper arm travels back. In a Kelso shrug the arms stay straight and only the shoulder blades move.
Machine or bench? Either. A row machine or T-bar gives you a fixed pad and handles; a bench needs only dumbbells or a barbell. Use the one you can keep steady and repeat, and log them separately.
Overhand or underhand grip? Both are used, and dumbbells allow a neutral or angled grip as well. Kelso associated the underhand grip with the lower traps and lats; machine demonstrations often use a wide overhand grip. Choose one per history and record it.
Does it work the upper traps? They take part, as they do in other retraction work, but the defining action is pulling the blades back and together rather than up.
Can I do it without a machine or a bench? Yes: Kelso’s original bent-over barbell version. Your lower back and hips hold the position, so keep it in its own history.
Sources and method
- Paul Kelso, Kelso’s Shrug Book (Hats Off Books, 2002) — the originator’s descriptions of the movement, grips, supported versions and the 1968 note; read through the Google Books preview.
- WorldCat: The Kelso Shrug System (Middle Coast Publishing) — the earlier book.
- All Strength Training: dumbbell Kelso shrugs (2025) — the incline-bench dumbbell setup and cues; the demonstration at the top.
- Dema Ascend: Kelso shrug guide (2026) — the range of setups, the slight-bend allowance and the practice drill.
- Merrick Lincoln, DPT: the machine Kelso shrug (Breaking Muscle, 2023) — machine setup, cues and programming; his demonstration is embedded above.
- Eirik Sandvik: Kelso shrugs (T Nation, 2016) — the incline-bench barbell setup.
- TeachMeAnatomy: the superficial back muscles — actions of the trapezius and rhomboids.
- Castelein et al. (2016) and Kara et al. (2021) — muscle activity in other scapular-retraction exercises, not the Kelso shrug.
- Brolic catalog version 2026-09-22.1 — name, aliases and logging mode.
No study has tested the Kelso shrug for muscle size or strength; the setup details are coaching practice. Kelso’s comments on which muscles each grip favours are his own impressions. The example log is original and hypothetical.
