Focus on TUT and muscle activation, not moving heavy weights.
Specifically, I like lateral raises either with a two-count at the top or with 1-and-a-half reps (full rep, then halfway down, then back up… that’s one rep). I also like strict elbows-out DB rows with a pronated grip for rear delts, again with a two-count pause at the top. The movements is basically this (he’s talking not-American, but the technique demo is spot-on):
Mechanical advantage drop sets also work great for this.
Dumbbell press to push press to jerk is a basic one. Ahrens press to dumbbell press to Arnold press is another killer.
I will add - the correct reply was “Dude what are you talking about. You look SWOLE!”
But I will accept your genuine & helpful advice. Thank you. Which as it is, all seems to say a similar thing. Less weight, more reps, more volume, more TUT. I will take a look at what you’ve all posted in more detail later and see what I like to the look of.
@Chris_Colucci I assume you are no longer on the payrole?It is good to see you still on the forums.
I’ve only ever really incorporated a few things into my shoulder workouts as ‘staples’ over the years.
I’ve used:
facepulls, in the higher rep range for just a few sets, at the end of almost every single workout I do, no matter what the rest of the workout looks like.
lots of overhead pressing. I think this really is always going to be the most important exercise for what you’re trying to do, and everything else is built around that. Eventually the results will come if you keep getting stronger.
bench pressing. Not as important, but I still think it can help.
lateral raises, whether done with cables, bands, or dumbbells. I do these regularly as a supplemental exercise in the 10-15 rep range, 3-5 sets. Nothing crazy.
I dont believe that exercises change the way our muscle develops to a noticable extent unless we already have good genetics and we also go for specific bodybuilding goals where some extra 7% difference might matter.
I believe my shoulders are one of the good bodyparts i have
The roundness and fullness is there, im also 6’2 so its no the “compressed effect”. And honestly, before these pics were taken i dont think i ever did anything for my shoulders directly.
Lately i do overhead press as a part of 531 and i do 2 sets of bent over laterals for shoulder health a week. Thats it.
If id have to guess, id say - adding some side laterals to your pressing will unlock either maximum or close to maximum potential of your shoulder genetics.
I dont think that doing anything else after presses and side laterals, will do more than extra 5% which just wont be noticable anyways.
What really does make my shoulders pop is being lean.
And i guess its with all bodyparts. The leaner you are the better it looks, so in a lot of cases people dont have the worst bodyparts, they are just too fat for them to shine.
Do a billion band pull aparts. Do band pull aparts between sets of everything else you do in the gym. Set a daily amount that you will always do. You can NOT to enough band pull aparts.
That’s the only rear delt work I do, but after a decade plus of just smashing them, my rear delts are pretty sizeable
Thanks to every one for the replies.
I think I will add in 1-2 set of lateral rises - focusing on high reps and paused at the top to increase the TUT and lots of band pull a parts / face pulls.
I’m also working on this:
I think this might be an under lying cause of my shoulders not looking their best.
Shoulders have always been the outlier in my training that either get too much attention or not enough, mostly because I find the exercises for shoulders strange… They are either really heavy (OHP, Shoulder Press, etc.) or really light (lateral delt raises, rear delt flyes, etc.) with very little in between. What’s worse is all the heavy exercises disproportionately target the front delts, leaving an inherent imbalance in strength/muscle growth.
Has anyone found there to be a benefit of training presses vs isolation work?
I do rear delt stuff (and maybe low traps) first to try to Wake Up the backs of my shoulders to balance things out, adjust the bar path a little, and get some of the stress off my front delts. I got it from Paul Carter here
For “medium” shoulder stuff I like 1 arm presses or landmine presses. It’s nice to use a grip different than the regular, pronated, barbell type grip and get a nice long ROM.
I tried this once and it made everything else for shoulder day so much weaker. My rear delt work wasn’t any stronger starting first so I put it back to the back. I know meadows and other people advocate doing it first like you, but I couldn’t make it make sense in my head
I’m open to trying rear delt stuff first, but I imagine this turning into more of a pre-exhaust type situation where my rear delts went from getting ~10% stimulus to 0% stim…
Of course, it also makes sense to let things like OHP suffer temporarily to bring up rear delts, considering the imbalance.
