Strong, well developed deltoids capture the physique, giving that greek mythical god like appearance.
There are many many fancy exercise out there for deltoids; lying lateral raises, arnold presses and upright rows to name a few - but nothing beats the good old fashioned movements to pack on the mass. These are the movements used in my routine.
The deltoid complex is made up of three heads - the front (anterior) head, the side (lateral) head, and the rear (posterior) head.
Each exercise in the routine is geared towards stimulating a specific head - three heads = three exercises. Yes THREE EXERCISES - nothing more!!!
THE ROUTINE
Standing Barbell Military Press 3x 6-10reps
Dumbell Lateral Raise 3x 8-12 reps
Bent over lateral dumbell rasise 2x 8-12 reps
In general, work close to failure, soemtimes to failure, sometimes on rep short. You don't want to blast yourself all the time, but you don't want to take it easy either. You need to work hard remember. One rep short is still painful. (good pain, not OWW!!!)
Before doing this routine warm up with some light cardio fo 10 minutes, then do some arm circles, both arms at a time, forwards for 20 circles and backwards for 20. This will help loosen up the delts and the shoulder girdle itself, reducing risk of injury.
STANDING BARBELL MILITARY PRESS
This is the daddy of all shoulder exercises. After the above warm up has been completed, perform two warm up sets of 10 reps with a light weight - say half the working load. So if you press 50kg for your work sets, warm up with 20-25kg. Don't go anywhere near failure.
This exercise works the front delt primarily, as well as some side delt and very little or no rear delt.
FORM
1. Clean barbell to upper chest level (or set up from a power rack).
Assume a grip of slightly wider than shoulder width - say 2 inces each side
2. Make a slight bent in legs, arch back slightly and pull abdominals in - making your core tight.
3. Press bar up, in a contolled manner, no jerking of the legs or upper body, until arms are almost locked out above head. Look up at the bar as you press.
4. Lower the bar smoothly and deliberately, but not too slowly. feel the negative but don't take too long. Lower the bar to around chin level.
5. As you begin to struggle with the exercise later in the set, focus on absolute core tightness. The lumbar region of the spine is at risk if you get loose and wiggle about, straining to complete a rep. It is advisable, though not imperative to wear a lifting belt for this exercise.
DUMBELL LATERAL RAISE
After your military presses you shoulders will be nice and warm so just do a quick warm up set to 'test the water' with half your working weight.
This exercise works the side head primarily.
With dumbbell in each hand, assume the same posture as with the military press (arched back, tight abs, slight bend at the knees).
1. Hold the dumbbells with palms pretty much facing, in front of you belly button, arms bent to about 130 degrees, not straight.
2. Using a nice controlled and fluid motion raise the bells to either side (simultaneously) until upper arms are just about parallel to the floor - no higher, maybe a little lower. At the top of the movement the hands should be palms facing floor, and the wrists should be in line with the elbows - not above or below.
3. Lower back to starting point, feeling the negative, but not too slowly. Don't drop the weights down - feel it.
4. Try not to swing the torso to lift the weights. You see many pros do this, and I'm not gonna argue with those guys, but if you need me to tell you how to do this exercise in the first place you're probably not at the sort of level of devbelopment to benefit from 'cheatin' type techniques'.
BENT OVER DUMBELL LATERAL RAISES
To work the rear deltoids. This movement is similar to the lateral raise.
1. Bend over to the point that you torso is almost parllel to the floor, maybe 10 or 20 degrees up from parallel. Keep back arched.
2. Pick up dumbells (position them where you can get them once bent over)
using same grip as for laterals.
3. Raise the dumbells out to your sides, with arms bent to about the same angle as before. Rasie until upper arms are parallel to floor, wrists in line with elbows.
Don't throw the weight up. If you need to do this the weight is too heavy. You only need a light weight for this.
4. Lower back to starting position, controlled.
When in bent over position, I like to look forwards (basically up) which helps to keep me steady. A LITTLE body 'rocking' is acceptable, but not throwing the weights around (same applies for standing laterals).
Some people like to rest their forehead on a bench for stability. I don't. So long as you keep the core solid and back arched slightly, you should be fine.
FINISHING UP - STRETCHING
After the work has been completed you need to stretch out the muscles.
Spend five minutes stretching - it will save you hours of pain. (well it will reduce pain) Hold your stretches for 10-15 seconds each side, do each side 2 or 3 times.
A stretch I particularly like is to pull one arm across your body with your free arm pulling the streching arm from behind the elbow. I'm not very good at describing stretches, so here are some links.
http://www.exrx.net/Stretches/Deltoi.../SideDelt.html
http://www.exrx.net/Stretches/Deltoi...ior/Lying.html
LENGTH OF ROUTINE
Taking one minute between sets, and up to 5 minutes between exercises, this routine should take 45 minutes give or take (including warmup).
Actual hard work portion of the routine is only about half an hour at most.
It depends on the intensity you're looking for. If you want to make it more intense, decrease the length of time between sets and exercises.
SHOULD THEY BE TRAINED WITH ANY OTHER MUSCLES?
You can train the deltoids with arms, legs, abdominals, back, or chest. Many people train the with chest because the deltoids are used in many chest pressing movements, so as to kill two birds with one stone, as it were.
I prefer not to do this, as you have already fatigued the delts, you can not attack the exercises with the same vigour.
With arms is a good approach, as the military press uses triceps as a SYNERGIST (HELPER), and neither delts nor arms need so much gut wrenchinlgy hard work as the other big areas such as legs and back.
In a well balanced split routine you can easily fit shoulders into their own day, but if you want to do them with another bodypart, go for arms.
Remember that many back exercises use rear delts (rows, pullups, etc) and chest uses front and side delts so when constructing your split, allow time for recovery.
~~~~~BONUS~~~~~
If your shoulders are easily damaged, I bet it's your rotator cuff that's to blamed. If you're using excellent form for everything and allowing proper rest and recovery time and your shoulder's playing up, I would hedge a bet on the rotator cuff.
The rotator cuff is a complex of four small muscles - subscapularis, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and teres minor. They act together to keep the humerous tighly housed inside the shoulder socket, and to avoid the damaging effect of bone grinding on bone.
You can train these muscles just like any other, and the extra strength will help avoid recurring injuries to the shoulder.
Here is a link to some rotator cuff exercises:
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20030315/1315ph.html
remember, rotator cuff exercises require VERY LOW WEIGHTS - big Ronnie Coleman reportedly does external rotations with 10lbs max!
If your problem is not to do with the rotator cuff, but is actually an injury to the deltoid complex itself you must FOLLOW YOU DOCTOR'S ADVICE ONLY. Preferably a sports therapist who knows youe history. I Am not about to go about dishing advice on how to cure an injury, only how to better prepare yourself for prevention of injury.
Well, that just about wraps it up for this topic. I hope you found it helpful.
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