Well-developed shoulder muscles are a critical part of any truly impressive physique. Bodybuilders work hard to get a v-tapered look and a key part of achieving it is by making your deltoids thick and round. Guess what? Working out to build shoulder muscles only takes a few minutes.
Many serious lifters will argue that underneath clothes, muscular shoulders make the greatest contribution toward the overall appearance of the upper body.
The shoulder controls the lifting and rotation of your arm and is a three-headed muscle. Your shoulder has three regions—the front (anterior), middle (medial), and rear (posterior).
You can stimulate all three parts with just two different moves—an overhead press and a raise.
The overhead press really is the key element of shoulder training and will build shoulder muscles the fastest. There is hardly any other lift that can match the power of this move. You can either use a barbell or dumbbells for overhead pressing, but if you really want to build shoulder muscles as quickly as possible, then dumbbells are your best choice.
If you want to build shoulder muscles, dumbbells are a great way to get a full range and even motion as they stop you from using your stronger arm to do most of the work. Also, using a barbell puts part of the strain on your upper chest instead of allowing you to focus on your shoulders exclusively.
The best core movement to build shoulder muscles is the seated overhead dumbbell press. The bench that you use for this exercise should have a vertical support for your back. Press up with the dumbbells until your elbows are just short of locking out and then lower them back to your shoulder level.
Next up is the basic side lateral raise with dumbbells—use this exercise in order to build shoulder muscles. This exercise will primarily target the medial head of the shoulder. Building up the medial head is a great way to increase the overall width of your upper body.
To start, bend your knees just a bit, grab a pair of dumbbells and hold them with your palms facing your body. Making sure that your arms are slightly bent, raise the dumbbells slowly to shoulder level, and then lower them back to the starting position slowly.
If you are trying to get big and strong shoulders, the only exercises you need are the side lateral raise and overhead press. Considering that the shoulders are stimulated through virtually every upper body exercise, you don’t have to do a lot of additional work to build big shoulder muscles.
Do not waste time doing too much work to build shoulder muscles because this might actually hurt your results. This is why you should avoid isolation exercises for the posterior and anterior heads.
It’s important to realize that the anterior heads have to work hard during chest pressing movements and during rowing movements for the back, the posterior heads get stimulated too. A couple of extra sets here and there won’t do anything bad, but try and keep the volume to a minimum.
Do not focus on quantity when you build shoulder muscles; focus on quality instead.
The following are a few sample shoulder routines….
Shoulder Routine #1
Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press – 2 sets of 5-7 reps
Standing Dumbbell Side Laterals – 1-2 sets of 10-12 reps
If you simply must continue doing isolation exercises for the anterior and posterior heads, use the following routines.
Shoulder Routine #2
Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press – 2 sets of 5-7 reps
Standing Dumbbell Side Laterals – 1-2 sets of 10-12 reps
Standing Front Dumbbell Raise – 1 set of 10-12 reps
Seated Rear Lateral Dumbbell Raise – 1 set of 10-12 reps
That’s all there is to it.
You will only get the full benefit if you take every set to concentric muscular failure such that you can’t do any more reps without sacrificing proper form. Maintain detailed reports of your workouts and push yourself to do better by adding additional reps or increasing your resistance on a weekly basis.
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