Shoulder Workout

Training Your Shoulders

The key muscle group of the shoulder is the deltoid.  Deltoid has frontal, lateral and rear heads.  The frontal head of the deltoid gets a lot of work during normal bench press.  The lateral and rear heads of the deltoid are the ones that really require special attention.

Basic Shoulder Exercises

The musculature of the shoulder region is generally powerful but the joint itself is delicate.  Shoulder work demands a methodical approach and some light-weight sets to warm-up.

Military Press

The Military Press is a superb shoulder building exercise.  You can use dumbbells or a barbell.  Some machines do a good job of replicating this move too.  Stand with feet wide apart.  Clean the bar up to your collar-bone.  Press it straight up overhead.  Elbows should be fully extended.  Lower it back to the collar bone.  Repeat.  Engage your core when you do this exercise or you may feel discomfort in your lower back.  This exercise mostly hits lateral delts but also uses frontal delts to a lesser extent.  This should be your first deltoid exercise if doing multiple exercises, due to the remote risk of dropping the weight on your head.

Dumbbell Side Laterals

This exercise is excellent for hitting the side or lateral delts.  These muscles need to be worked if you're going to add width to your shoulders.  Ladies - this exercise gives your shoulders that nice definition that looks great in a sleeveless dress.  Using light to medium weight dumbbells and a slight bend in the elbows, raise the dumbbells up to about ear-height.  Just as the model in the photo is doing - tip the front of the dumbbells down.  Just like you're pouring a bottle.  This slight move really focuses the work onto the lateral delts.  Lower slowly and repeat.  I like to start with the weights together in front of my body.  This creates a little work for some of the rotator-cuff muscles.

Bentover Dumbbell Flyes

This exercise works the often-neglected posterior or rear delts.  This muscle is vital for many sports and manual labour as well as giving you a square-shouldered appearance.  You can sit on the end of a bench or lie down prone on the bench to do this exercise.  Some people do this in a standing position.  If that's comfortable for your lower back, I'm not going to stop you (unless you're my client).  Dumbbell in each hand, slight bend in elbows...raise the dumbbells up as high as you can.  There's no risk of going too high!  Don't raise your chest up.  Keep hands well forward (you should be able to see the dumbbells in your peripheral vision).  Lower.  Repeat.

Basic Shoulder Routine

Try this after a decent warm-up:

Military Press: 3 sets of 8 reps

Dumbbell Side Laterals:  3 sets of 10 reps

Bentover Dumbbell Flyes:  3 sets of 10 reps

Tom

Hate Me Now - Thank Me Later