You don't want that. Don't be that guy (or perhaps girl) whose workouts consist entirely of 12 different variations of bench press and MAYBE 1-2 curl exercises.
To truly have a wonderful and balanced body aesthetic, you need to work all major muscle groups hard. If you want an imposing upper body, shoulders help bring everything together and can make more of a difference than you can even fathom when trying to have that nice dominant look. Moreover, shoulders are very fragile and prone to injury from how many different moving parts / joints / areas of articulation are present within that part of the body, and so developing strength within them will prolong whatever career in fitness and bodybuilding you hope to have.
The shoulder is composed of the clavicle, scapula, and humerus (source: wikipedia). The major muscle group, as it pertains to bodybuilding, is the deltoid muscle on either side of the body (there are MANY muscle groups / fibers relevant to shoulders, but they can be worked out through compound exercises on days where you workout other muscle groups). The deltoid is a triangular muscle composed of posterior, middle, and anterior muscle fibers, which can be targeted depending on the shoulder workouts you do.
Up until now, I've found it difficult to think of 5 workouts for the muscle groups I've highlighted. However, with shoulders, there is a plethora of nice exercises you can do to grow and strengthen them. Here I've included 5 of my favorites, but exercises like shrugs, cable side raises using a cable cross machine, and seated bent-over reverse flys get honorable mentions.
I've found that for shoulders, line of drive is important. For a lot of these exercises, before you lift the weight, you want to set up your line of drive to where your try to pinch your shoulder blades together, and push in the direction of flexion on an imaginary "track" that is almost behind your ears when you are pressing above your head.
When lifting from the side, lift up, but almost try to go behind the top of your shoulder blades, and when lifting backwards, just try to pinch your shoulder blades hard at the end range of flexion. As always, pause for a half second to a second at the end flex range of motion, lower slowly, and lift until failure.
My top 5 shoulder exercises include:
1. DUMBBELL SHOULDER PRESS
Sitting on a bench with a 90 degree bend, hold two dumbbells in your hands, making 90 degree angles with your arms with your elbows pointed out at your sides and your fists pointing upward into the air. Pinching your shoulder blades and lifting with the weights being at or slightly behind your ears, flex your deltoids and push upwards. Follow a small outward-in eliptical motion, pushing the weights slightly out as you push up, and bring the inside faces of the dumbbells together. You should feel a nice pump in your deltoids. Repeat until failure.
Sitting on a bench with a 90 degree bend, hold two dumbbells in your hands, making 90 degree angles with your arms with your elbows pointed out at your sides and your fists pointing upward into the air. Pinching your shoulder blades and lifting with the weights being at or slightly behind your ears, flex your deltoids and push upwards. Follow a small outward-in eliptical motion, pushing the weights slightly out as you push up, and bring the inside faces of the dumbbells together. You should feel a nice pump in your deltoids. Repeat until failure.
Source: buildingmuscle101.com
2. LATERAL RAISES
Let me first say that a little bit of weight goes a long way for this exercise, and you wouldn't want to use weight that is too heavy for this particular exercise as you run the risk of injury and not getting a successful pump / stimulation.
Grab two dumbbells and hold them at your sides. With a slight bend in your elbows and knees, and a slight curve in your back, raise your arms sideways and lift the weight as high as you can using only your shoulders. For maximum pump, I've found that aiming backwards as you raise upward activates the deltoids nicely.
Source: besttoneup.com
3. REVERSE FLYS (Yes, for shoulders)
Alright. Go ahead. Yell at me. Tell me this isn't a shoulder exercise. You can blame the person who first introduced me to these, as they put them on their shoulder workout page. I feel that the pump I get in my rear delts justifies me putting them in a list of top 5 shoulder exercises. I even remember watching a video where professional bodybuilder Kai Greene said he considers the shoulders to just be an extension of the upper back. You're welcome to believe what you want though!
Using a fly machine, sit facing the back padding and adjust the arms to the reverse fly position (where they are close together at the back of the machine). Position your hands so that your fingers are pointing forward, and that the outside of your palms are touching the inside of the machine arms, gripping the handles like bicycle handles.
Bring your arms back as far as you can until you feel a flex in your rear delts and upper back, holding your arms out straight during the motion. Not too much weight is required, and on exercises like these one should aim for higher repetitions in my opinion. Here's a good video illustrating how to perform these correctly (source: fitnessbyday.com):
3. REVERSE FLYS (Yes, for shoulders)
Alright. Go ahead. Yell at me. Tell me this isn't a shoulder exercise. You can blame the person who first introduced me to these, as they put them on their shoulder workout page. I feel that the pump I get in my rear delts justifies me putting them in a list of top 5 shoulder exercises. I even remember watching a video where professional bodybuilder Kai Greene said he considers the shoulders to just be an extension of the upper back. You're welcome to believe what you want though!
Using a fly machine, sit facing the back padding and adjust the arms to the reverse fly position (where they are close together at the back of the machine). Position your hands so that your fingers are pointing forward, and that the outside of your palms are touching the inside of the machine arms, gripping the handles like bicycle handles.
Bring your arms back as far as you can until you feel a flex in your rear delts and upper back, holding your arms out straight during the motion. Not too much weight is required, and on exercises like these one should aim for higher repetitions in my opinion. Here's a good video illustrating how to perform these correctly (source: fitnessbyday.com):
4. REVERSE MILITARY PRESS
I've fallen in love with this exercise. It's really good for shoulder development, and you really feel it working when you do it right.
Find a military press machine in your gym if your gym has one. It should have an incline in the bench, along with some poles for which to stack weight on. It's designed to have you sit forward, but for this variation, sit with your body facing towards the back padding. To do these correctly, you actually do not want to have your body be able to fully rest up against the back padding when you're holding the grips to perform the motion.
While facing the back padding and holding the handles, lean slightly forward to put tension on your shoulders, flex your delts, and drive upwards with them. Do it nice and slow and make sure you get a nice pump while doing them. They do not require much weight, and are good for showing which side of your body likes to push the weight more. If you do in fact find that one side is dominating the other in moving the weight, adjust yourself accordingly so that one side is not dominating the other. Below is a good video illustrating this by youtube user Carlos Davito:
5. BARBELL RAISES (Sitting reverse on an incline bench)
This is another good exercise that stimulates the deltoids.
Using a barbell, lay on an incline bench with your chest up against the back padding. Hang your hands down and grab onto the barbell to where your hands are about shoulder-width apart. Using only your shoulders to motion the weight upwards, bring the weight up to the height of where your forehead is. Do NOT bend your elbows at all. At the top range of motion, pause for half a second to a second before letting the weight come back down. Aim for high repetitions. This exercise also requires almost no weight to perform correctly, so do not be afraid to use a barbell in the 20-40lb range to get proper form and a nice pump.
And there you have it. My top 5 shoulder exercises. Incorporate these on your next shoulder day to really give your shoulders a nice workout. Remember to use proper form and a nice line of drive with repetitions until failure and holding the weight at the end range of flexion for half a second to a second.
Using a barbell, lay on an incline bench with your chest up against the back padding. Hang your hands down and grab onto the barbell to where your hands are about shoulder-width apart. Using only your shoulders to motion the weight upwards, bring the weight up to the height of where your forehead is. Do NOT bend your elbows at all. At the top range of motion, pause for half a second to a second before letting the weight come back down. Aim for high repetitions. This exercise also requires almost no weight to perform correctly, so do not be afraid to use a barbell in the 20-40lb range to get proper form and a nice pump.
Source: muscleandperformancemag.com
Have fun, and maximize your upper body aesthetic with nicely developed deltoid muscles and shoulders!
-Jtrain
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-Jtrain
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