The Best Shoulder Exercises For Definition and Size
What body part is the most important for an aesthetically appealing physique?
That answer varies from person to person, but one of the keys to an overall athletic and aesthetic look is well-defined shoulders. Man or woman, having defined shoulders is essential for having toned arms and an impressive frame.
Well-developed shoulders is an indication of strength and health and is a prominent feature that draws a lot of attention. Nothing caps off a good physique like toned shoulders and nothing can detract from an otherwise good physique like underdeveloped shoulders. There is a reason that broad shoulders has been a desirable trait for centuries.
Shoulder training is often something that is neglected or done improperly. This is especially true for women as they feel that training shoulders too intensely will give them too broad of an appearance or make them look “manly”.
Women only produce a fraction of the testosterone that men do, thus the heavy shoulder training that I am outlining will not produce giant broad shoulders but lean, toned muscle mass.
For men, intensely training your shoulders will produce a wide and strong look for your overall physique.
Here I will outline my favorite and most effective shoulder movements and then put them together into a usable shoulder workout routine.
Before we get into the movements let me just show a brief diagram outlining the names of the deltoid muscles and how I will be referring to them in this article.
The Movements
Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Pressing movements are essential for building the overall strength and density of your shoulders. This is the main compound lift for your shoulder workout and should be done as heavy as possible.
Dumbbell Side Lateral Raises
Side raises are most effective for targeting the lateral head of the shoulder and can help you achieve broader, stronger shoulders and really make your deltoids stand out from the rest of your arm.
These can be done either seated or standing and should be done in high volume for the best results.
Seated Dumbbell Rear Delt Flys
The rear delts are one of the most neglected muscles in the body. They are key to providing a round 3D shoulder. It is very easy to tell when there is not enough rear delt development as the shoulder tends to look flat in the back and blends into the rest of the arm.
Focusing on form is KEY with rear delt work. It is a very small muscle and if you are not conscious of keeping your form correct you will be engaging a lot of other muscles to do the work instead of your rear delt.
Go slow and take your time on each rep, focusing on the contraction of the rear delt. START LIGHT! The muscle is small and higher volume with good form will yield much better results here than heavy lifting with poor form.
Rear delt work is an essential part of having bigger, more defined shoulders.
Another great variation utilizes a bench set on a 30 degree incline. This can really help isolate the rear delt if you are having trouble not engaging other muscles while performing this movement.
Shrugs
For those that like going heavy, this is a good lift for it, as the range of motion is short. Like any other lift, do not let your form suffer for weight, and focus on contracting your traps at the top of the lift.
Upright Cable Rows
This is another great exercise for increasing the size and strength of your lateral and front heads of the shoulder as well as working your traps.
If you are an athlete or work on Olympic-style lifts, upright rows can help increase your cleans and snatches.
When performing the exercise, hold the bar under the chin for a second and lower the bar slowly on the way down to help prevent any injury.
Rear Delt Machine
Oh yeah, back to the rear delts. The importance of this tiny muscle in your shoulder appearance cannot be overstated.
In fact, it is so small that it’s hard to get full activation of the muscle, but research has shown that rear delt flys on a machine give the highest activation of any other rear delt exercise.
Standing Cable Lateral Raises
Just like rear delts, we are coming back to the lateral raises. Growing the lateral head of your shoulder will give the broad shoulder appearance that many strive for.
A Few Tips For Shoulder Training
There are a few things to keep in mind before I get into the routine.
- This is a very high volume routine and pretty advanced. If you are just beginning, start light, and do not try to get everything the first time around. I will provide a lighter, more basic routine at the end that you can start with.
- Be sure to focus on form. Shoulder injuries are one of the most common in fitness training. The shoulder joint has more mobility than any other joint and needs to be treated with caution.
- Listen to your body, and do not overexert yourself.
- Do not train shoulders and back on consecutive days as your back gets worked in certain movements and many upper back movements also hit your rear delts. Give yourself proper rest time.
- You might notice that my routine, unlike many others, does not include front delt isolation exercises. This is intentional as the front delt is worked in pressing, lateral, and rowing exercises, as well as in most chest exercises. Isolating it, in my opinion, can lead to disproportionate growth in comparison to the lateral and rear delts.
- WARM UP YOUR SHOULDERS!! Stretch and do rotational exercises with bands and with no resistance to ensure that your shoulders are properly warmed up and ready to work to prevent injury.
- Focus on progressive overload (starting with lighter weight and working up to heavier weight until failure). Try to increase some element of intensity every workout.
- Increase weight from the last session
- Increase sets
- Decrease rest time between sets
- Focus on form and add pauses during the contraction phase of the lift
- Focus on the negative, slow the movement down on the eccentric, or lowering phase of the movement
Doing this will help prevent stagnation of muscle growth and keep you in a state of hypertrophy.
Advanced High Volume Shoulder Routine
Here is the shoulder routine that I implemented in my workout that has helped me see great growth in my shoulders in five months of work. I do this routine one day a week, which is enough, as you will be pretty sore afterwards.
I will show the weights that I am currently using but you should take the time to find starting weights that challenge you but still allow you to keep good form.
This is an advanced workout. The beginners version that I started with is shown in the next section.
Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Warm up 45 lbs 15 reps
Working Sets: 6-8 reps for 4 sets with 70 lb dumbbells
After each set, drop the weight and pick up the warm up weight (45 lbs.) and do another 8 reps
5th set: use warm up weight and rep until failure
Side Lateral Raises- Superset with seated rear delt raises
Warm up 30lbs for 12 reps
Working Sets: 4 sets x 8-10 reps with 45 lb dumbbells
Sets 3 and 4 perform 10 half reps right after each set
Superset with seated dumbbell lateral raises. 4 sets x 12 reps with 35 lb dumbbells
Shrugs
5 sets x 8 reps with 90 lb dumbbells
Cable Side Lateral Raises-Superset with Rear Delt Fly Machine
Working Sets: 4 sets x 8-10 reps with 30 lbs on cable machine
Super set with rear delt fly machine: 4 sets x 12 reps at 110 lbs
Upright Cable Rows
4 sets x 10 reps at 150 lbs
Drop set from 150 lbs down to 90 lbs
Now I know this is a LOT of reps but the high volume and emphasis on lateral and rear delts has led to real growth in my shoulder strength and size.
Needless to say, I did not start here, I took a few months to work up to this. I started by adding weight, then adding exercises, then adding in super sets and drop sets.
Below is the routine I used to start with and what I would recommend if you have not done high volume training before or are just starting out.
Beginner High Volume Shoulder Workout
Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Warm up 15 reps
Working Sets: 4 sets x 6-8 reps
Side Lateral Raises-Superset with seated rear delt raises
Warm up: 12 reps
Working Sets: 4 sets x 8-10 reps
Superset with seated dumbbell lateral raises. 4 sets x 12 reps
Shrugs
5 sets x 8 reps
Cable Side Lateral Raises
4 sets x 8-10 reps with 30 lbs. On cable machine
Upright Cable Rows
4 sets x 10 reps at 150 lbs.
This is a good place to start while still offering a variety of exercises and high amount of reps.
Wrap Up
Toned, pronounced shoulders are important to an appealing physique and lean muscular arms.
Focusing on lateral and rear delts is important for proportionally growing full three dimensional shoulders. Using a heavy compound movement such as overhead press ensures strength and muscle growth in the shoulders.
If you have found stagnating gains in your shoulders and need a change, give this a try. As always, let me know what you think and if this worked from you.
Leave your thoughts in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
