My shoulder workout sucks

[MsDominatus]

Yet I have developed shoulders.

I want a new one. I don't like my current workout and often feel like i'm not doing enough for them. I want them to be perfectly round as I can see/feel bone in the rear delt and middle (medial?) delt.

I do:


Shoulder presses 4 -5 sets

Face Pulls - still not sure if these are doing anything for me or not but i'm doing them as they were described to me - pulling toward the face with arms perpendicular or higher to my body.

Front Raises - can't go up in weight w/these. Im stuck at a wimpy 15 lbs.

This is it. This is all I do. Is this enough?


Oh and.. any exercises I can do to really pull my shoulders back and improve my posture? It seems years of insecurity brought them forward a bit.

[zfan88]

Yet I have developed shoulders.

I want a new one. I don't like my current workout and often feel like i'm not doing enough for them. I want them to be perfectly round as I can see/feel bone in the rear delt and middle (medial?) delt.

I do:


Shoulder presses 4 -5 sets

Face Pulls - still not sure if these are doing anything for me or not but i'm doing them as they were described to me - pulling toward the face with arms perpendicular or higher to my body.

Front Raises - can't go up in weight w/these. Im stuck at a wimpy 15 lbs.

This is it. This is all I do. Is this enough?


Oh and.. any exercises I can do to really pull my shoulders back and improve my posture? It seems years of insecurity brought them forward a bit.

I would replace front raises with cable side raises....or seated side raises

[RU4A69]

Seated dumbell press
Behind the neck military press
Lateral raises
Rear lateral raises (about twice a month)




-that's what I'm currently doing-in that order. The dumbell presses and BTN presses are never cycled out, but I'll do one seated and the other standing.......you get teh picture.

The thing with front raises..........incline presses and even flat presses nail teh ant. delt-so while I'm not saying it isn't important to work the front delt, it's rarely a lagging point, whereas rear and medial ARE.

[MsDominatus]

I don't think I can do a military press yet, kiddo. But thanks, i'll add the side laterals as suggested by Z and the rear laterals. I did a set of the rears tonight and i'm just not certain I did them correctly. bad night.

[RU4A69]

I don't think I can do a military press yet, kiddo. But thanks, i'll add the side laterals as suggested by Z and the rear laterals. I did a set of the rears tonight and i'm just not certain I did them correctly. bad night.

use an EZ bar

[gusto]

all i do for shoulder directly is 5x5 military presses

you could do push presses with the bar, if not that i dont know

[MsDominatus]

all i do for shoulder directly is 5x5 military presses

you could do push presses with the bar, if not that i dont know

How are your shoulders looking with that 5x5 set? Specifically the rear and medial delts? I find these shoulders of mine fatigue rather quickly. I *may* be able to military press if thats all I did.. but I don't think I could DB press AND military press in the same workout. In fact, i've never attempted the military press, it was a step toward big-girldom that I hadn't taken yet

[DiamondDelts]

Did someone say shoulder training?(foaming at mouth)

[AbMasterD]

for both medial and frontal delts arnold presses work wonders for mass and definiton

[Saviour]

contrary to popular belief, shoulder needs A LOT of work. they recover very quickly and you need to hit them very hard from all angles, especially those with "not-so-good" shoulder genetics.

some people can do 3 sets of overhead presses once a week and have good shoulders, hell one of my mate never work his shoulder directly and he's got decent shoulders. but NOT you!!

don't be scared to work them hard with high intensity, and high volume, your shoulder loves volume.

[BlackMountain]

My shoulders are the best thing about me.
Military Presses
Bent over lateral raises
Lateral raises.

These should really get those delts stacked.

Also do Deadlifts on back day.

Don't do front raises as ur fronts get thouroughly worked out on Bench Press day.

[Nainoa]

I don't think I can do a military press yet, kiddo. But thanks, i'll add the side laterals as suggested by Z and the rear laterals. I did a set of the rears tonight and i'm just not certain I did them correctly. bad night.

A couple of things...

1. Yes you can indeed to military press... Unless you've got some kind of physical ailment that prevents you from lifting things over your head... Then as Steve Bushemi (sp?) would say.. "jYou can do Ieet!"
Just start light and let your form over come your sense of intimidation.

2. After dealing with my shoulder injury and recovery for nearly a year now... Compiled with past results and experiences and the advice an Ortho, a PT, and Sports PT... You're better off focusing on the well rounded nature of your compound lifts, the exercise selection of your over all routine, and MAKING ABSOLUTELY SURE that every single rep of everything is done with a slow controlled negative phase to the lift.

Yes, I know... This oppinion is very unpopular around these boards, and I'm sure I'll get slammed for it, but I've tried and tested it in the baptism under fire, and I stand by it!

Personally I would advise doing this...
A: **** can Shoulder day *Gasp* Yes that's right... I said **** Can shoulder day... As my SPT told me when I was making good progress in rehab... "Your shoulders are getting hit in every single upperbody lift... They're like a Boxer who's going the distance for 15 rounds... You know he needs to go to the hospital to heal up afterwards... So why do you think that adding another 5 rounds to the fight to make it a 20 round bout, mean that he's going to spend less time in the hospital?" To which I added, following her line of thought... "He'd be better off making the most out of the early rounds."
(Now I've always kind of felt this way so I didn't pick the logic apart.)

Your shoulders are meant to operate in a complex synergy. (Otherwise why am I working my RC to strengthen the tensile memory of my AC joint?) Use something as it's intended... Use it as a synergy, and make the early rounds of the fight pay off...

To whit I would advise and exercise selection that looks like this...
Chest/Tri... Which includes
Dips 3X10
DB incline 3-10 (At about 45 Degrees)
Military Press 2X12 (Work your way around on this one to build confidence.)

Then add whatever you wish in other exercises...

**Note when doing these exercises, you need to be a Nazi about your negative... Every negative phase of the lift, should be done at the same speed or preferably slower than the pressing phase was.
Negatives are a part of the equation just as much as the positive phase of any lift... You often hear these guys talking about how going uber heavy helped them make gains... Reason that they see such great results is that going heavy forces them to slow down their rep speed, which forces the slow negative and they get the most out of TuT (Time under Tension.)

Then on Back and Bi day... Make sure you include Chins, (Or some damn heavy pull downs if Chins are still too much) One Armed DB rows (Forcus on flexing the back and rear delt first in the chain of contraction (This will go a long way towards helping your rear delt issue.) And of course slow negs...
And then be sure to add in 3X10 Bent Rows.

***
A lot of times people focus too much on adding in a new spanfangled iso exercise when the reality is that they could do an old compound exercise, and merely execute it with the tighter and more beneficial order of contraction, to get the same or often better results.

3. Buy a sledge hammer... Go to your snow blower and bash it into bits... Now Buy a shovel... You live in Minnesota for Chrissake... Every blizzard, is the perfect chance to get an awesome shoulder workout.

4. I doubt you'll do this one, but it bears mentioning... Put in some Rack Pulls into your workout... One of the first things I got the ability to do, back in my shoulder injury was Static holds... I was amazed at what Rack pulls did for my delts...

5. Is a given... Make sure your diet is tight enough and high on protein.
If you aren't journaling and tracking, you should be, it takes about 3 months to really zero in on your maintence level, so you can "Clean bulk" with confidence.

[MsDominatus]

A couple of things...

1. Yes you can indeed to military press... Unless you've got some kind of physical ailment that prevents you from lifting things over your head... Then as Steve Bushemi (sp?) would say.. "jYou can do Ieet!"
Just start light and let your form over come your sense of intimidation.

2. After dealing with my shoulder injury and recovery for nearly a year now... Compiled with past results and experiences and the advice an Ortho, a PT, and Sports PT... You're better off focusing on the well rounded nature of your compound lifts, the exercise selection of your over all routine, and MAKING ABSOLUTELY SURE that every single rep of everything is done with a slow controlled negative phase to the lift.

Yes, I know... This oppinion is very unpopular around these boards, and I'm sure I'll get slammed for it, but I've tried and tested it in the baptism under fire, and I stand by it!

Personally I would advise doing this...
A: **** can Shoulder day *Gasp* Yes that's right... I said **** Can shoulder day... As my SPT told me when I was making good progress in rehab... "Your shoulders are getting hit in every single upperbody lift... They're like a Boxer who's going the distance for 15 rounds... You know he needs to go to the hospital to heal up afterwards... So why do you think that adding another 5 rounds to the fight to make it a 20 round bout, mean that he's going to spend less time in the hospital?" To which I added, following her line of thought... "He'd be better off making the most out of the early rounds."
(Now I've always kind of felt this way so I didn't pick the logic apart.)

Your shoulders are meant to operate in a complex synergy. (Otherwise why am I working my RC to strengthen the tensile memory of my AC joint?) Use something as it's intended... Use it as a synergy, and make the early rounds of the fight pay off...

To whit I would advise and exercise selection that looks like this...
Chest/Tri... Which includes
Dips 3X10
DB incline 3-10 (At about 45 Degrees)
Military Press 2X12 (Work your way around on this one to build confidence.)

Then add whatever you wish in other exercises...

**Note when doing these exercises, you need to be a Nazi about your negative... Every negative phase of the lift, should be done at the same speed or preferably slower than the pressing phase was.
Negatives are a part of the equation just as much as the positive phase of any lift... You often hear these guys talking about how going uber heavy helped them make gains... Reason that they see such great results is that going heavy forces them to slow down their rep speed, which forces the slow negative and they get the most out of TuT (Time under Tension.)

Then on Back and Bi day... Make sure you include Chins, (Or some damn heavy pull downs if Chins are still too much) One Armed DB rows (Forcus on flexing the back and rear delt first in the chain of contraction (This will go a long way towards helping your rear delt issue.) And of course slow negs...
And then be sure to add in 3X10 Bent Rows.

***
A lot of times people focus too much on adding in a new spanfangled iso exercise when the reality is that they could do an old compound exercise, and merely execute it with the tighter and more beneficial order of contraction, to get the same or often better results.

3. Buy a sledge hammer... Go to your snow blower and bash it into bits... Now Buy a shovel... You live in Minnesota for Chrissake... Every blizzard, is the perfect chance to get an awesome shoulder workout.

4. I doubt you'll do this one, but it bears mentioning... Put in some Rack Pulls into your workout... One of the first things I got the ability to do, back in my shoulder injury was Static holds... I was amazed at what Rack pulls did for my delts...

5. Is a given... Make sure your diet is tight enough and high on protein.
If you aren't journaling and tracking, you should be, it takes about 3 months to really zero in on your maintence level, so you can "Clean bulk" with confidence.

Thank you so much for typing out this detailed and informative post, fellow Minnesotanite.

Rack pulls - as in an alternative to Deads? I do deads - light deads w/a pre-weighted bar so far - working on my form.. on back day, by the way. Every workout is slow and controlled positive and negatively..speaking. I don't have it in me to go into it explosively. And I do assisted dips and rack chins as well as you mentioned. I think i've got most things down pat, there's just a few areas I struggle with - like the Military press - I can see myself knocking myself out w/this one... i'll try your suggestions though - thanks.

[niceasey]

Yet I have developed shoulders.

I want a new one. I don't like my current workout and often feel like i'm not doing enough for them. I want them to be perfectly round as I can see/feel bone in the rear delt and middle (medial?) delt.

I do:


Shoulder presses 4 -5 sets

Face Pulls - still not sure if these are doing anything for me or not but i'm doing them as they were described to me - pulling toward the face with arms perpendicular or higher to my body.

Front Raises - can't go up in weight w/these. Im stuck at a wimpy 15 lbs.

This is it. This is all I do. Is this enough?


Oh and.. any exercises I can do to really pull my shoulders back and improve my posture? It seems years of insecurity brought them forward a bit.

My current shoulder work out is

DB shoulder press 3x8
underhand grip front raises on incline bench 3x10
lying side laterals 3x10
standing cable laterals 3x10
face pulls 3x10


I think having a decent set of traps and abs help to give better posture. Mines improved no end since I started lifting.

[zfan88]

Nainoa, it's Rob Schneider

[MsDominatus]

Nainoa, it's Rob Schneider

zfan - you Myspace geek!!!!

By adding me you have boldy gone where many haven't gone before.. my apologies in advance.

[zfan88]

Lol, I don't know why you're apologizing

And of course I'm a computer geek, keeps me out of trouble and allows me to eat every few hours

[MsDominatus]

Lol, I don't know why you're apologizing

Because, by accessing that you get to see pre-body building Jess pictures plastered all over your pc screen... read about my dreadfully boring life and see how truely geeky I am..... and I mean truly geeky.

I don't go on there much anymore... not as often as I did prior t oBB'ing. Something has to pass the slow time at work.

[ericTHEninja]

I must be different than most of you guys suggestion against front raises. When I'd be benching heavy, the first thing that would prevent me from going up was the front. After adding in front raises, it's gotten much better. Maybe it was just a weak point.

[jmonty]

for rear delts, i have found that a simple excercise works very well: the rear delt dumb bell row. i just never liked how raises felt for the rear delts, but this always seems to give me a good pump. the description of it is here:
http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/...arDeltRow.html

and have you tried seated military presses with an ez bar? it seems to work well for me, esp since i have made sure to keep the seat as close to perpendicular as ipossible.

[W8isGR8]

I've been throwing this around a lot lately, but look to the real world for examples. Boxers and basketball players all have amazing shoulders, why?
Because of the tremendous volume of shoulder work. I've never found heavy shoulder work to be effective, especially once a week.

Shoulder muscle is over 60% slow twitch, so lighter weight/higher reps/more frequency is the way to go(in my opinion).

Cable side laterals 3x a week(in front and behind the body) will fill out your shoulders nicely. I notice that you don't have any direct side delt work currently.

[Nainoa]

I've been throwing this around a lot lately, but look to the real world for examples. Boxers and basketball players all have amazing shoulders, why?
Because of the tremendous volume of shoulder work. I've never found heavy shoulder work to be effective, especially once a week.

Shoulder muscle is over 60% slow twitch, so lighter weight/higher reps/more frequency is the way to go(in my opinion).

Cable side laterals 3x a week(in front and behind the body) will fill out your shoulders nicely. I notice that you don't have any direct side delt work currently.

Now I've got to disagree with you a tad on some of this...

For one... Baseball players and Boxers DO NOT have Great shoulders IMO...
I've spent some time in Boxing Gyms, and at my height I've played A LOT of games of basket ball, and my shoulders devour their little shoulders like snack foods...

Don't confuse the low body fat ripped look which comes with those sports, for "Size."

And you're using the word "Shoulders" a little too loosely...
Traps which are considered part of the shoulder, are indeed very slow twitch... Delts on the otherhand are not so much...

The real key with shoulders is CONTRACTION... Making sure you get Max contraction is going to go a hell of a lot farther to helping you find your bodies correct volume for growth, than simply switching up volume until you hope to get it right.

[W8isGR8]

Now I've got to disagree with you a tad on some of this...

For one... Baseball players and Boxers DO NOT have Great shoulders IMO...
I've spent some time in Boxing Gyms, and at my height I've played A LOT of games of basket ball, and my shoulders devour their little shoulders like snack foods...

Don't confuse the low body fat ripped look which comes with those sports, for "Size."

And you're using the word "Shoulders" a little too loosely...
Traps which are considered part of the shoulder, are indeed very slow twitch... Delts on the otherhand are not so much...

The real key with shoulders is CONTRACTION... Making sure you get Max contraction is going to go a hell of a lot farther to helping you find your bodies correct volume for growth, than simply switching up volume until you hope to get it right.

disagree all you want

"surface 53.3% slow twitch, 46.7% fast twitch
deep 61.0% slow twitch, 39% fast twitch"

Obviously, different strokes for different folks.

However, if someones current routine isn't working, why shouldn't they try something different.

[zfan88]

I've been throwing this around a lot lately, but look to the real world for examples. Boxers and basketball players all have amazing shoulders, why?
Because of the tremendous volume of shoulder work. I've never found heavy shoulder work to be effective, especially once a week.

Shoulder muscle is over 60% slow twitch, so lighter weight/higher reps/more frequency is the way to go(in my opinion).

Cable side laterals 3x a week(in front and behind the body) will fill out your shoulders nicely. I notice that you don't have any direct side delt work currently.

I actually agree with this, and I find cable side laterals very helpful. I only go heavy on dumbbell/barbbell press to help with flat bench for power

[W8isGR8]

I actually agree with this, and I find cable side laterals very helpful. I only go heavy on dumbbell/barbbell press to help with flat bench for power

I think it was Atrainer that said that shoulder press and bench press were the exact same movement, just in different positions.

Any press is going to be predominantly front delts. The only way the side delts get worked full is to bring them straight out to the sides. That's their job(anatomicaly speaking).

[MsDominatus]

Any press is going to be predominantly front delts. The only way the side delts get worked full is to bring them straight out to the sides. That's their job(anatomicaly speaking).

Hence the side laterals. But then, how is a military press any different from a DB shoulder press??? It is just the fact that your negative drops behind your neck allowing the rear delts to kick in? MsDom confuuused.

[W8isGR8]

Hence the side laterals. But then, how is a military press any different from a DB shoulder press??? It is just the fact that your negative drops behind your neck allowing the rear delts to kick in? MsDom confuuused.

Look at how your arms are rotated. Either way the front delt is pointing up, meaning it's the one head with the mechanical advantage. Rotate your arms internally a little, now the medial head it pointing up, making that the prime mover.

That's the easiest way to think about it. Whatever head is pointing up is the one that's going to get hit hardest.

[RU4A69]

I've been throwing this around a lot lately, but look to the real world for examples. Boxers and basketball players all have amazing shoulders, why?
Because of the tremendous volume of shoulder work. I've never found heavy shoulder work to be effective, especially once a week.

Shoulder muscle is over 60% slow twitch, so lighter weight/higher reps/more frequency is the way to go(in my opinion).

Cable side laterals 3x a week(in front and behind the body) will fill out your shoulders nicely. I notice that you don't have any direct side delt work currently.

Please stop with this line of thinking-boxers and basketball players do resistance training. Look at an oly sprinters delts-even better than a Bball players or boxers. How is this so?-because all of the above athletes train shoulders with weights and the sprinter is the leanest so his delts look the most jacked.

But WAIT A MINUTE-who has the most jacked delts of all......that's right folks-bodybuilders.

[W8isGR8]

Please stop with this line of thinking-boxers and basketball players do resistance training. Look at an oly sprinters delts-even better than a Bball players or boxers. How is this so?-because all of the above athletes train shoulders with weights and the sprinter is the leanest so his delts look the most jacked.

But WAIT A MINUTE-who has the most jacked delts of all......that's right folks-bodybuilders.

Hey! A-hole! My reference was to the "volume of training" they recieve, not the methods they train with. Of course they use weights. I'm saying that a few sets of heavy presses once a week might not be the only way to build shoulders.

[Nainoa]

Look at how your arms are rotated. Either way the front delt is pointing up, meaning it's the one head with the mechanical advantage. Rotate your arms internally a little, now the medial head it pointing up, making that the prime mover.

That's the easiest way to think about it. Whatever head is pointing up is the one that's going to get hit hardest.

Okay... I'll bite...

So what impact does this have on the negative phase of the lift?