How to build big, round shoulders.

[SMKillerBody]

Man, shoulders are so crucial for everything. Hurt your shoulder and your whole workout routine for every body part except legs is screwed. Great post!

[egosum12]

nice

[Euanjm]

Very good

[Covinprohn]

Military press and dumbell flys boom

[Tonyy926]

Great guide man

[McDoubles]

Hey man, you think standing over head press build the shoulders?

[CaraG73]

If your shoulders can withstand the strain on them by doing behind the next military press. This is how I got extremely round shoulders a few years ago before they started bothering me

[stevenolsewski]

Great tips and information, thanks!

[flexnhard]

thanx for this article

[Haider92]

thank you, interesting read

[Unalloyed]

Front Raises: This exercise is an isolation movement for your front(anterior) deltoids. If you're training your chest and shoulders as you should be, there's probably no need for the Front Raises. You should only do this movement if you feel that your front(anterior) deltoids is lagging.

Exactly, many people fail to realise just how hard chest training hits anterior delts. After flat bench pressing I feel it more in my front delts than triceps!

[whodafuq]

awesome guide.

[imcca001]

Awesome thread man. Thanks

[iOWAiOWAiOWA]

angles. all angles.

[nashjocic]

Now that we covered the back training during the last article, lets talk about another important body part.

The Shoulders

During my years of working out I've heard people say "my legs are too big", "my back is too big", "my arms are too big" but I've never heard some one say "my shoulders are too big". There are two reasons for that. First, the deltoids are such stubborn muscles to grow. 2nd, there is no such thing as too big shoulders. Matter of fact I wish I had two basket-balls as shoulders .

As I mentioned in the previous article a novice shouldn't complicate his workout at all. All you need as a novice or even at the beginning of the intermediate stage is to stick to the basic movements, progress and profit!

But for an intermediate trainee or someone who is making the jump to a more serious training regimen you need to understand that the deltoids are composed of three different heads: the front(anterior), the middle(medial) and the rear(posterior). Hitting those heads while performing a combination of compound and isolation exercises is necessary to achieve full development.

-Compound Movements

Dumbbell Seated Shoulder press : My favorite Shoulder movement of all time the absence of Bar allows full ROM while Arms are inline with shoulders thus creating no moment-arm this movement will target your front(anterior) and middle(medial) heads respectively.

Behind The Neck Shoulder Press: Such an excellent movement only issue about it is some people find it uncomfortable to perform if you have shoulder/rotators cuff problems stay away from this movement but if you can perform it without any trouble u might find it VERY beneficial. This movement will target your middle(medial) head mainly and to be honest I credit most of my shoulder gains to this movement among with Seated DB Shoulder Press.

Push press: Same as a regular standing overhead press but you start with a slight leg drive. Could be used as a great movement to burst through plateaus on a regular overhead press or performing couple extra reps without having to cheat using your pecs(by bending your torso) which forms huge pressure on the lower back.

Up-Right Row: This movement targets middle(medial) head of the deltoids with minor assistance from the anterior head, biceps, and traps. Using a closer grip puts more emphasis on the traps, while wide grip will hit the lateral heads more. Just like BTN Press this movement isn't for everyone some people will find rotator cuff/shoulders issues while performing it, if you are one of them then don't do it. I only perform this exercise using a wide grip and stop when you reach the middle of your pecs, feels pretty comfortable that way. You can go up to your chins if you can/want tho. You can use DB or BB to perform this exercise, another great variation of this exercise is doing it using a rope on a low cable pulley.

Face Pull: This movement targets your rear(posterior) head of the deltoids, traps and your back's typically weak scapular muscles, which stabilize your shoulder joints. Important note to keep in mind while performing this exercise is to use moderate weight. Never go heavy, other wise you will end up doing cable rows instead of face pull.


-Isolation movements

Front Raises: This exercise is an isolation movement for your front(anterior) deltoids. If you're training your chest and shoulders as you should be, there's probably no need for the Front Raises. You should only do this movement if you feel that your front(anterior) deltoids is lagging.

Rear Deltoids: When it comes to deltoids many lifters are imbalanced front to back. We spend time developing the pecs and anterior delts nowhere near the same amount of time spent on the backside. for this particular reason I highly recommend performing a rear-delt isolation movement. Such as lying/seated rear-delt raises, reverse pec-dec or Incline bench supported rear-delt raises.

Lateral Raises: This is a great isolation movement for the middle(medial) head of the deltoids.
when performing this exercise keep in mind:
Stop when your body forms a T any higher than that and you are bringing in the traps.
Don't just jerk the weight up otherwise the pressure will transfer to the traps.
Don't lock your elbows, but maintain a slight bent during the exercise.

Shrugs: Traps are such an important muscles they aren't just what you see between your shoulders and neck these are known as the upper traps. Your traps go down to your back therefor hitting them directly is necessary for a full back development, Shrugs are the movement to for it. There are many variations of shrugs. behind the back, front and DB shrugs. when it comes to shrugs when your hands are forward you add emphasis to the back of the trap, when your hands are behind put more to top of your trap for this particular reason a shrug movement performed on an incline bench will hit your rhomboid. Grip width is another element to take into account. Using a wide grip will put more pressure on the outer traps while a closer grip will put more pressure on the inner trap(where your traps meet your neck). Most important note to keep in mind while performing a heavy shrug is Don't roll your shoulders. Use a straight-line ROM rolling your shoulder will risk causing injury specially under such a heavy weight.

The Workout
As mentioned earlier hitting the 3 heads of the deltoids is necessary to archive full development
my shoulders day usually look like this:
- Pressing movement using a BB or DB.or both.
- Face pull.
- Lateral raises/upright Rows.
- Rear Delt Raises.
- Shrugs.

The Grips
You will find a lot of thoughts on this but IMO Use the grip that feels more natural and comfortable to you. When it comes to shoulders safety comes first. If you injured your shoulders you are unlikely to perform most upper body movements, which is the last thing you want.

Last but not least
You need to understand that there is no one size fits all. Everyone's body mechanics are slightly different therefore the body response to each exercise will vary. You need to keep experimenting to find out what works best for you.

Well, if I may... This is a typical hands on training approach which starts with the basic exercises first and than continues with some isolation movements. There are many explanations for this type of approach, but not really sound ones... We all know that most of the people have overdeveloped front shoulder heads, while lateral and rear heads are lacking in progress. The main reason for that is the approach I have mentioned. Front shoulders receive a tremendous stimulation from all the chest presses, and also from isolating chest exercises as they are usually done wrong. Therefore, most of the front shoulder development does actually happens from the chest workouts. Now, if you start your shoulder workout with the press (any press), your fronts will again get the priority... Better solution will be to start with lateral raises, as that is the only part of the shoulders that doesn't receive stimulation from chest or back exercises. Since lateral deltoids account for your shoulder width, they are also the most important part of your shoulders. Why not giving them a priority for a change? You can than do rear deltoid exercises and finish with some kind of press. Trapezius muscles belong to the back muscles and I would rather train them with the back, if you need to train them at all. Hope this help you to add a bit more options to your shoulder training strategies. Best regards, Nash
http://nashfittraining.com
http://nashjocic.com

[gymguerrilla]

Great read.

[Kenacillin]

Hey man, thanks for this great article. After 10 good years of strict training, deltoids have been such a struggle for me (as well as chest). I have prioritized them for 6 months at a time, here and there within this timespan, and I am back at the delt improvement phase again.

After doing every trick in the book, attacking the delt at every angle, and utilizing what has worked in my regimen over time, you had reminded me of behind the neck presses! I totally forgot about them. 3 years of various heavy presses and about 10-15 different angles for raises I've only seen decent improvement. Adding behind the back will benefit me, especially since there is an external rotation of the shoulder aspect to the press. Thanks!