[quote]Aragorn wrote:
SHOULDERS
I’ve changed up shoulder training over the years and am pretty happy with all the things I’ve tried. For much of the time I’ve trained shoulders as an assistance exercise for the purpose of bringing up my bench. This means they were never very often the focus of my training because I was focused on the big three and didn’t want a “shoulder day” or any such thing. However, as I’ve gotten more into phases of aesthetic training I’ve noticed a couple things really worked for me. LONG POST AHEAD–for the ADD people bullet point #1 is rear delts (this post). #2 is lateral delts–next post.
- Note on rear delts–3D shoulders are as much about the back as the shoulders themselves. lots, and I mean frequent, work on the rear delts–and low traps–helps a ton. It not only makes your shoulders rounder it really helps stabilize the joint for the movements that will really put meat on them and keeps you injury free. Low trap work isn’t really self-evident, but it plays a role in the stabilization of the structures. I mean, you can’t really get focused on shoulder training if you have constant pain there. Besides which, chronic weakness in the structural stabilizers leads to decreased neural drive as a physiological safety mechanism even if you’re pain free. SO, here’s what I have done.
At the beginning of every workout in the week, I have a face pull, pull-apart, or high row as part of my weighted warm-up. As I have been doing frequent training up until the past few weeks, that has amounted to about 6 days a week for a year and change. 3-4 sets x 5-6 days x a year. It’s quick and painless, takes 5-6 minutes max.
My warm-up circuit was this, or a variation: power snatch from hang x 3-5 reps, plyo push-ups or something, face-pull 6-8 reps, lower body exercise or jump, and roman chair. Essentially hit all major movement planes, but it adds up to a lot if you do it every day: 3 sets power snatch + 3 sets face-pull = 6 sets. 6 sets x 5 days is pretty good weekly volume, and it’s a warm-up.
FYI I am/was pressing overhead 4 days a week, and at least 2 days of power snatch work. For a long time my recent routines had 4 days of power snatching, 2 light 2 heavy, with 2-3 days of overhead pressing in addition to that. It was all low rep olympic based stuff (1-5 reps).
When I did “back days” before going to the high frequency set-up I would also sometimes go through periods of focusing on this as a finisher or part of a tri-set or something. Never the main focus per se, but there. Can’t remember where I came up with it–I may have gotten the idea from CT years ago perhaps–but basically: 10-2 raises, rear delt flyes, and then rear delt swings all in a superset with no rest for 8-12 reps each. This was all done lying the wrong way on an adjustable incline bench set to mid/low incline. Too high and you get upper traps taking over.
I came up with the swings myself as far as I know although I am quite sure that they’ve been done before–one of the best back movements there is and also one of the best for rear delts depending on how you tweak the motion and if the delts have been pumped/fatigued prior. A
basic swing is this:
Use bench like you’re going to do dumbbell rows. Instead, grab a kettlebell–they work with db’s as well but this is one of very few movements I far prefer a kettle for. Now, set up hand/knee on the bench arm hanging down. Push the chest up without leaning up (essentially arching) and keep the shoulders perfectly parallel to the ground. Hold the chest up and starting from a dead stop swing the kb to your hip. Arm should remain very close to your body and you should thing of “stretching” your back, or lengthening the space between head and tailbone.
This is not a row to the hip, it is a swing–very much like a reverse hyper is not a hamstring curl but a swing from a dead stop. You might keep “soft knees” but you don’t flex your knees when you do a reverse hyper and you shouldn’t flex your arm when you do these. Palm facing floor when the bell is at your hip (facing towards your head when hanging down).
Do muscle-rounds (thanks CT): 6 reps left, 6 right, 6 left, 6 right, etc. That’s 4 rounds of 6 reps a side with no rest. Light weight–this is a feel exercise getting started and if you fuck up the feel you can’t get the most out of them. Start just regular sets of 10 to get a feel, then after a couple days of doing it switch to the rounds. Once you get the feel you can go heavy. These also hit the lats hard btw, depending on your grip style. For rear delts these are most effective after face-pulls or something you can really feel in your delts rather than lats. As I mentioned, you can also do these lying face down on an incline bench.[/quote]
Aragorn,
I just wanted to thank you for writing this, and let you know that I’ve found it really helpful.
After reading about how you train shoulders, I’ve been training them 3X per week, starting off with a lot of push pressing, working on sets of 5 or 6 until I have to drop the weight, then hitting sets of 8-10 until fatigued. Not doing your program really, but you gave me the idea to get more volume in on an OHP movement and to train them with more frequency. I decided on the push press, and I’m getting A LOT more volume this way. I’ve also been incorporating your kettlebell swing for the rear delt as a superset with DB laterals. I like using the Kettlebell a lot, although I’m recruiting a lot of tri so I may have to keep playing with that. If you have a video, please post. Anyway, my delts have been SUPER hard for me to progress.
2012 was my year for legs. 2013 I worked really hard on delts. 2014 will be another year of DELTS - hopefully done right. I have seriously been cooking them with the increased volume. Thank you so much for taking the time.
One other thing - I don’t drink coffee, so my caffeine intake is pretty minimal. I like to drink iced green tea, a couple of cups a day. Anyway, Chris Colucci had mentioned preworkout caffeine. I don’t know why I hadn’t tried it before - super natty and all 
- but I can work harder and get more volume in if I take 200 mgs 30 minutes before training. This is probably not news to anyone here, but it was one of those things that I wish I’d tried three years ago.