Stubborn Shoulders..what did you guys do?

[adang92]

Hi guys,


I wouldn't say my shoulders are terrible but they're not growing at the same rate as the rest of my arms.....for people with stubborn shoulders what did you guys do???


for shoulder presses i usually stick between 6-8 reps

isolation exercises like lateral raises i try to stay in the 12 rep range.

i also hit them 2-3 times a week. enough rest. proper nutrition..i have made gains dont get me wrong


Im thinking about switching to high reps for my pressing as well.....

[LostLlama]

Not sure if facepulls are in your repertoire but they should be. It's akin to making your arms look bigger by doing a lot of tricep work instead of curls...sort of.

[229time]

Maybe try working them out directly only once a week. Since they are involved in many other lifts, you are indirectly hitting them on other days as well.

[ironwill2008]

Hi guys,


I wouldn't say my shoulders are terrible but they're not growing at the same rate as the rest of my arms.....for people with stubborn shoulders what did you guys do???


for shoulder presses i usually stick between 6-8 reps

isolation exercises like lateral raises i try to stay in the 12 rep range.

i also hit them 2-3 times a week. enough rest. proper nutrition..i have made gains dont get me wrong


Im thinking about switching to high reps for my pressing as well.....

I stuck with using good form, no cheating, and increased the frequency to working them twice per week for several months.

And as has already been mentioned, get 3-4 sets of Face Pulls into your routine.

[magician27]

i dont train em that hardcore , its one of my body bodyparts. i do 3 sets pressing 2 times a week. and about 5-6 triple dropsets of lateral raise once a week.. hitting delts too often makes your pec development suffer

[jbs101]

Arnold press for dwight howard shoulders lol

[MarkDenny]

Lateral Raises are great for building shoulders. I used to play baseball so shoulder work was extremely crucial. After consulting with different trainers one tip was always consistent: Building the smaller muscles is how you build the bigger muscles. Now I know in the bodybuilding world that's common sense, but it's something to always keep in mind. Doing high rep light weight shoulder workouts will really stimulate the smaller muscles allowing them to grow. I've never dedicated a day to shoulders but I have great physique with them simply because I focused on those smaller muscles, so naturally the bigger muscles grew faster. This is just my personal opinion on it man. Hope it helps!

[mjwilson396]

Side lateral raises and lots of volume. I don't even bother keeping track of sets anymore. I just keep doing them until I'm exhausted.

I like lots of drop sets starting with heavy weight and dropping down to lighter weight for 3 or 4 drop sets. After doing this type of volume it really made my delts pop out.

[KDG730]

If youre having trouble try focusing on doing more side and rear lateral work because the side Delts (not the front delts) are really what make the shoulders stand out so you should definitely focus on hitting them as hard as possible. Besides the front delts get alot of work on Chest day

Try doing some heavy side laterals (6-8) as well as FST-7 Side Cable Raises (7 sets 8-12 30 sec-rest) at the end of your workout
Or you could also try pre exhausting the muscles and doing side laterals before you do your DB Presses. <---really effective

Good Luck.

[BlazinSB]

Everybody has their stubborn body parts
but
On shoulder presses instead of the rep range 6-8 bump it up to 10-12
also consider incorporating incline DB shoulder press to the workouts, might seem unnecessary but trust me, They do work for the front delts
Seems like you have side lateral worked in just fine.
Front delt raises are great, did wonders for me.
Last but not least rear delt raises.

Also Remember to increase weight if you can do 2 out of 3 sets easily, and switch up the workouts from time to time, simply to shock the body.

Hope it helps

[Yodums]

What exactly is your shoulder workout?

My shoulders exploded when I started treating my side delts and rear delts as separate muscle groups. I just do a ton of high rep side raises, face pulls, and rear delt flyes with the pec deck with slow and controlled reps

I would say the biggest issues with lagging shoulders are: 1) Using momentum in your lifts because the weight is too heavy (e.g. raises); and/or 2) A shoulder workout that is too anterior/front delt focused and doesn't have enough exercise to hit the side and rear delts.

[MichaelCJ]

High volume with reps between 8 and 12 (or thereabouts) and/or rest-pause. Both have worked really well for me.

[NFLProphet]

I used to have really small shoulders, friends made fun of me. I did this 8 week shoulder routine, twice. It was twice a week, 3 workouts each day. Day 1, Barbell shoulder press, arnold press, then a 'shoulder circuit' of front raises, lateral raises, and post-delt raises. Day 2 was, dumbell press, machine shoulder press, then shoulder circuit again. It was brutal, after every workout I felt like my arms were gonna fall off. It was hard to shower. But after about 3 months, shoulders were the main part getting compliments from people, filled out my shirts pretty nicely. The lifts were programmed to start off at high reps, then work down to low reps. They varied between 3-4 sets, and 4-12 reps over the span of 8 weeks. The circuit was always 10 reps each side.

[RDJ427]

Maybe you need to increase the volume on certain exercises. How many sets are you doing? I used to mainly focus on military/dumbbell press, and treated lateral raises and other isolation exercises as an afterthought. Once I treated all the exercises as equally important, my shoulders started to respond. They're still lagging behind, but that's from years of neglect.