YAWT: What to do for shoulders?

[Gurck]

So I noticed my shoulders are kinda smallish in comparison to the rest of me... I do military presses, but they seem to hit my traps more than my delts. Lateral raises just feel like a girly-man exercise, what with doing only ~25 lbs., and don't give me the "just got a badass workout" feeling in my delts either. I've tried Arnold presses, but I have a slightly pulled muscle near my left shoulderblade that they aggravate (at least, when I do them with my left arm), and I'm trying to stay away from it to let it heal, so they're out.

 

[RagingBITCH]

MP should hit all 3 delts moreso than the traps. It should be the base of any good shoulder routine. If you're doing 25lbs with lateral raises and you don't feel the burn, you're doing it wrong. You need to make sure you isolate your delts during the excercise instead of using your arms to raise it. (To feel the difference, grab the dumbbell with only your thumb and forefinger and do the lateral raises - concentrate and use your shoulders to raise the weights) There aren't a lot of different shoulder excercises to do, unfortunately. Make sure you're working all 3 delts in your excercises though.

 

[scorp00]

Try military press with DB. Also front and side raises. That's all I do and my shoulders went from nothing to decent. Incline bench works shoulders some too.

 

[Doboji]

Get the rope thingy machine.... with the one hand handle... do lateral raises with it.... and in the same set also do rip cord style lifts... that is stand sideways with the handle in the hand farthest away from the machine... then pull it in an upward motion so that your hand is by your head in like a bicep flexing position... repeat...

-Max

 

[Ikonomi]

Maybe you guys can give me some pointers. Delts are a big weak area for me, so I want to streamline my shoulder workout.

Which is the better exercise for the lateral deltoid: lateral raise or upright row?

 

[amcdonald]

A lot of people are against the upright row because it is easy to injure yourself.
Shoulders get messed up easily in general.

I just do lateral raises and DB presses.

 

[Amused]

My current shoulder routine:

2 warmup sets of seated shoulder presses
2 heavy sets of same.
2 heavy sets of seated dumbell arnold presses
1 warmup then 2 heavy sets of wide grip (shoulder width) upright rows on a smith machine. The key to avoiding injury is to focus on form and do them slow. No jerking or heaving.
2 sets of lateral raises
2 sets of shrugs (dumbell or shrug machine)

My posterior shoulders get hit on back day

This is a lot to do, so it may not be a good routine for someone who is new to this. My shoulders were seriously lagging as well. This routine and variations of it have helped me make remakable gains in shoulder size and strength.

BTW, I didn't list them, but inbetween sets I do some high rep rotator cuff exercises. If you start to have shoulder pain, these may really help.

A good site explaining them: http://familydoctor.org/265.xml

 

[Jeraden]

There are 4 parts to the shoulder (or 3 if you don't count traps). Front deltoid, side deltoid, rear deltoid, and traps. So pick 1 exercise to work each of them.
I do military presses (front), side lateral raises (side), shrugs (traps), rear lateral raises (rear). The military presses hit the front deltoid enough that you don't need to do front raises.
Like the guy above mentioned, upright rows are kind of controversial as many believe they can cause injury over time, so I go for side laterals over upright rows.

 

[Gurck]

Nice posts fellas. Amused, how important would you say Arnold presses are? This is the one thing I can't really do due to this damn nagging strained muscle.

 

[blackdogdeek]

imo, if MPs are making your traps bigger, then your form is incorrect or you are compensating for the weight by using other support muscles(like traps).

what are arnold presses? are they just behind the neck presses?

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: blackdogdeek
imo, if MPs are making your traps bigger, then your form is incorrect or you are compensating for the weight by using other support muscles(like traps).

what are arnold presses? are they just behind the neck presses?

Arnold presses are like "super" dumbbell presses. Hold the dumbbells up in the starting position with your palms facing in - your arms will be closer together. When pushing up, rotate the dumbbells outward so at the peak position, you're doing a normal dumbbell press. On the downward motion, rotate back inward and repeat.

It works your rotator cuff so if you're recovering from a RC injury, you might want to avoid this.

 

[Ikonomi]

I didn't know that upright rows were risky, though I should have -- I hurt my left shoulder doing them a while back. Thanks, looks like I'll be focusing on lateral raises for now.

Amused, that is one hell of a shoulder workout. Very hardcore.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: blackdogdeek
imo, if MPs are making your traps bigger, then your form is incorrect or you are compensating for the weight by using other support muscles(like traps).

what are arnold presses? are they just behind the neck presses?

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExer...ior/DBArnoldPress.html

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Gurck
Nice posts fellas. Amused, how important would you say Arnold presses are? This is the one thing I can't really do due to this damn nagging strained muscle.

Meh, I just do them to mix it up from regular DB shoulder presses. Changing your exercises regularly is a good idea, and Arnold presses are a viable alternative.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: Ikonomi
I didn't know that upright rows were risky, though I should have -- I hurt my left shoulder doing them a while back. Thanks, looks like I'll be focusing on lateral raises for now.

Amused, that is one hell of a shoulder workout. Very hardcore.

Shoulders and biceps have their own day together and it's after a day off, so it's really not that much. After I do shoulders, I do biceps... 4-6 sets of different exercises.