Prone Y Raise
trapezius
What moves the load, and what it costs
3.5MET
Trapezius is the prime mover, with the rear deltoid, rotator cuff assisting. One of the few exercises that trains the lower trapezius directly. Very light weight — a pair of two-kilo dumbbells is often enough.
Cue: Lie face-down on an incline and raise the arms overhead in a Y shape with the thumbs up.
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·FILED UNDER WEIGHTS, 8–15 REPS·REVIEWED JUL 2026
SHARED AXIS · SEVEN VALUES FROM ONE TABLE · HIGHLIGHTED ROW IS THIS MOVEMENT
The compendium files prone y raise under a category, not a lift. Read the ladder as position, not precision: this is heavier work than sitting quietly by a factor of 3.5, and middling for conditioning work.
Turning that MET value into a real energy cost
- Map the movement to a published category. The compendium measures categories of conditioning work, never individual lifts, so prone y raise is filed under Resistance training (weight lifting), multiple exercises, 8–15 repetitions at varied resistance.
- Take the category's MET value — 3.5. One MET is the cost of sitting quietly, so this is 3.5 times resting metabolism.
- Multiply by 3.5 to get millilitres of oxygen per kilogram per minute, the unit the MET is actually defined in.
- Multiply by your bodyweight in kilograms and divide by 200. The result is kilocalories per minute of work.
- Count working minutes only. Under load, not under the roof — a set of eight is about 25 seconds of the hour you were there.
kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × body mass (kg) ÷ 200 Prone Y Raise: 3.5 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200 = 4.29 kcal/min
SOURCE·ACSM metabolic equation + 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·REFERENCE BODY MASS 70 KG·REVIEWED JUL 2026
What is actually doing the work
| Muscle | Role | What it does here |
|---|---|---|
| TrapeziusTrapezius (upper, middle, lower) | Prime mover | The upper fibres elevate the shoulder blade, the middle fibres retract it and the lower fibres depress and upwardly rotate it. All three matter for a healthy overhead position. |
| Rear deltoidPosterior deltoid | Synergist / stabiliser | Draws the upper arm backwards and out (shoulder horizontal abduction and extension). Works with the rhomboids and mid traps on every wide-elbow row. |
| Rotator cuffSupraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, subscapularis | Synergist / stabiliser | Rotates the upper arm and, more importantly, holds the ball of the shoulder centred in the socket while bigger muscles move it. |
The prime mover produces the movement against the resistance; synergists assist and stabilisers hold a joint still without moving it. An exercise trains the whole muscle it loads — there is no way to work only part of a muscle, and no exercise removes fat from the area around it.
Set up, then earn the rep
Dumbbells, Bench. Every rep should look like the first one. The moment it stops looking like the first one, the set is finished.
PATTERN · ISOLATION
- Hinge forward at the hips until your torso is close to parallel with the floor, or lie chest-down on an incline bench.
- Let the dumbbells hang below the shoulders with a small fixed bend in the elbows.
- Lie face-down on an incline and raise the arms overhead in a Y shape with the thumbs up.
- Open the arms out and back in a wide arc, leading with the elbows.
- Stop when the upper arms reach shoulder level, hold for a beat, then lower under control.
- Think about moving the arms, not squeezing the shoulder blades together — the blades will follow, but leading with them turns this into a row.
Where this one breaks down
Not theory. These are the faults you correct on a gym floor, and the correction that actually works.
Going too heavy and turning it into a row.
If the elbows bend and the blades crunch together, the rear delt has handed the job to the mid-back. This is a light exercise.
Swinging up with the torso.
Fix the torso against a bench if you cannot keep it still.
Skipping it entirely.
The rear deltoid gets nothing from pressing and very little from tucked-elbow rows. It needs its own work.
Regress it, or progress it
Regress — earn it first
Progress — the next demand
This sits at the top of its progression here. Add load, add range, slow the tempo or go single-limb before you go looking for a new exercise.
Prescription: load, reps, rest
Read off the goal, then hold the technique constant as the load climbs. Derived from the movement's mechanics, not invented for this page: a single-joint movement does its best work in moderate to high reps — very low reps load the joint before the muscle.
| Goal | Sets | Reps | Rest | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | 3–4 | 6–10 | 2 min | Single-joint work responds poorly to very low reps — the joint gets the load before the muscle does. |
| Muscle size | 3–4 | 10–15 | 60–90 sec | This is where isolation work earns its place: cheap volume for one muscle, little systemic fatigue. |
| Endurance / fat loss | 2–3 | 15–25 | 30–45 sec | High reps here are genuinely useful — the load is small enough that form survives the fatigue. |
| First month | 2 | 12–15 | 60 sec | Light. Isolation work is for adding volume later, not for building a base. |
Time under load, in kilocalories
Read these as minutes of work, not minutes in the building. A set of eight takes about twenty-five seconds; the rest of the hour is rest, chalk and queueing.
Mapped category: Resistance training (weight lifting), multiple exercises, 8–15 repetitions at varied resistance — 3.5 MET. That is the published category this movement is filed under, not a measurement of this specific lift.
Worked at 3.5 MET × 3.5 × 70 kg ÷ 200 = 4.29 kcal per working minute for a 70 kg adult. Scale it by your own bodyweight; the equation is linear. The full activity dataset lives at BurnLab.
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·CATEGORY VALUE, NOT A PER-EXERCISE MEASUREMENT·REVIEWED JUL 2026
If the rack is taken
Substitutes train the same prime mover through the same pattern with different kit. Computed from the muscle and pattern data on this card, not hand-picked to fill a grid.
Where it sits in a week
One movement is not a programme. The twelve templates put these in order, including 6 that need no gym at all.
The questions that come up on the floor
What muscles does the prone y raise work?
Prone Y Raise is a single-joint isolation movement in which the trapezius is the prime mover, assisted by the rear deltoid, rotator cuff. The upper fibres elevate the shoulder blade, the middle fibres retract it and the lower fibres depress and upwardly rotate it. All three matter for a healthy overhead position.
Is the prone y raise good for beginners?
Yes. It rates 2 out of 5 for technical difficulty on this site — learnable in a session or two; low injury cost if it goes wrong. Start with the lightest sensible load and two or three sets of 12–15.
What can I do instead of the prone y raise at home?
This movement is difficult to reproduce without equipment. Where a bodyweight substitute does not exist, progress by slowing the tempo and using single-limb versions instead of adding load.
How many sets and reps of the prone y raise should I do?
For muscle size, 3–4 sets of 10–15 with 60–90 sec rest. For strength, 3–4 sets of 6–10 with 2 min rest. In your first month, 2 sets of 12–15, stopping well short of failure. Total weekly hard sets per muscle group matters more than the exact rep number in any of these ranges.
Does the prone y raise burn fat from the trapezius?
No. No exercise removes fat from the area it trains — spot reduction has been tested repeatedly and does not happen. Training the trapezius builds the muscle underneath; where body fat is lost from is decided by an overall calorie deficit and by your genetics, not by which exercise you chose.
Muscle roles follow standard kinesiology references and are described by joint action rather than by gym convention — see how this site is built. Energy figures are derived from the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Every reference is named and dated on the sources page. General information only — not medical or coaching advice. Load, form and progression should be adjusted to your own experience and any injury history. When in doubt, get coached in person.
SOURCE·Published exercise references·MUSCLE ROLES ASSIGNED BY JOINT ACTION·REVIEWED JUL 2026
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