Does anyone here not train shoulders directly at all and how have the results been? I currently train shoulders on my arm days but was thinking of cutting out shoulder training completely. Any thoughts?
the only shoulder exercise i do is laterals. i stopped doing presses when i went stagnant on poundages. my shoulders are still growing really well. i follw chest with 2 or 3 sets of laterals and thats it. i like it better. my chest has grown, and my overuse tendonitis/ bursitis is much better.
I have always done little shoulder work. Unfortunately, this has caused my shoulders to become a weak point. And now I have to bring up a lagging bodypart and force myself to do less chest work.
I think some people can do with less shoulder training than others depending on their genetic makeup and response to back and chest work. I used to work out with someone that had good shoulder development, so we rarely did shoulder work. Now I'm paying for it!
So it really depends on how you respond to training and whether or not your back and chest work illicits growth in your shoulders without direct work.
I know some authorities like Poliquin recommended no shoulder training. For myself personally, I always had lousy shoulder development, until I started training them directly with moderate volume. My shoulders now have that full round look, and my shoulder strength has made chest and tricep work easier. I don’t know what your current routine is, but if you were using high volume on your shoulders to begin with, I would take a couple weeks off of shoulder training and then add shoulder work gradually, focusing on technique more than power.
I don’t have any experience with that, but at one point, I did not train my arms directly at all for almost 2 years. I believed that compound movements would lead to the arm size I needed and be more efficient. Then my girlfriend told me I had small arms. I looked in the mirror and realized she was right. Also when people were like “do you lift weights” (i was 5’6, 205), I would just have them punch my chest instead of squeezing my bicep. My arms measured 14 inches. Pumped. After I added a few sets for bis and tris and forearms, they got up to 17.5 pumped. So I would imagine that totally cutting them out is a bad thing. I do think that most people do way too much pressing. I would cut out a lot, but not all of your presses, but keep in the lateral and rear delt work, as those aren’t worked in, for example, the bench press. Most people still overtrain arms and shoulders and undertrain back and legs. But that doesn’t mean to do nothing for an area.
Thanks for the feedback guys…one more question…i usually train shoulders on arm days using Poliquin’s five day split…
Day 1: Chest and Back
Day 2: Legs and Abs
Day 3 Rest
Day 4: Arms and Shoulders
Day 5 Rest
I usually superset biceps and triceps but by the time i get to shoulders my tris are too bombed to do much except lateral raises. I tried training shoulders before arms but i found that it affected my triceps training.Any suggestions?
You’ve got to train delts. Chest-shoulders-tricep day. It is a tough workout but it finishes them off as they were already worked with chest. Just do 1.Seated dbl prs 2.seated lateral raises 3.seated bent lateral(Keep chest laying on your thighs). Forget about front raises they were worked enough with chest
shoulders I defenitely my strongest and biggest bodypart. I stopped training them because they got to big. I can honestly say that Powercleans and chinups build them better than laterals and presses!