The shoulders, made up of 3 heads — anterior (front), lateral (side), and posterior (rear), are often hit and targeted with the major upper body compound chest movements like the barbell and dumbbell bench press. The shoulders are also often overtrained when they stop growing. If you’re training the chest directly 2 or 3 times a week, you’re also bombarding the shoulders indirectly the same amount of times in the same week.
Overstimulation can lead to overuse injuries surrounding the shoulder girdle and rotator cuff region. Once you notice excessive shoulder soreness that refuses to go away or a decrease in strength on all the major shoulder lifts, it’s time to take a step back and re-examine direct shoulder training.
photo credit: ShawnHenning
All bench press-related exercises involve the front anterior head of the shoulders as a supporting muscle group through the contraction and eccentric phases. So by doing just bench presses, you’re already stimulating the front delts to a great extent, especially when heavy weights are involved. However, this doesn’t mean the front shoulders are 100% isolated with work.
Every shoulder-related exercise involves all 3 heads. The bench press places stronger emphasis on the anterior shoulder head but the rear and side heads are also stressed. They’re not neglected. Now, if you bombard your upper body with multiple horizontal pressing movements like bench presses and dumbbell presses, you can easily overtax your shoulders. Once overtained, you’d see strength and mass gains level off. You might even get weaker.
One solution is to simply reduce direct shoulder training to get shoulders growing again. This works and I’ve seen this happen before many times. It’s counterintuitive to lay off training but it’s necessary if the shoulders are overtrained for an extended period of time. The shoulders would need the resting time to catch up to the training stimulus by rebounding to a base level of strength.
The overtraining of localized muscle applies to all muscle groups of the body, not just shoulders but a reduction in volume in any muscle group might result in gains, if previously focused on a program with heavy volume; lots of sets, reps, frequency, and exercises targeting one muscle group. I recommend reducing your volume, the total amount of sets x reps, by half. So if you’re doing 4 sets of 12 for shoulder presses, try 2 sets of 12 or 4 sets of 6 instead.
However, if you want to focus your efforts on bringing up lagging shoulders or if your shoulders are generally weaker than the other muscle groups, you can throw in some direct shoulder work with compound and isolation movements. The majority of direct shoulder work should be directed by the big main compound movements.
The list includes compound and isolation lifts,
Compound movements:
- standing and sitting dumbbell shoulder press
- standing and sitting military barbell press
- machine shoulder press
- dumbbell arnold press
- dumbbell and barbell clean and press
- standing barbell bent press
Isolation movements:
- dumbbell and barbell front raise; single or double arm with dumbbell front raise
- dumbbell lateral raises; single or double arm
- bent over dumbbell rear raises; single or double arm
- L-Fly for rotator cuffs
- cable lateral, front, and rear raises; done on cable crossover machine station
Compound lifts that indirectly work the shoulders,
- barbell and dumbbell bench press; includes all variations of flat, incline, decline on bench
- dips; weighted and body weight
- pushups, handstand pushups and all variations including weighted variations of pushups
- pullups/chinups; vertical pulling movements stress the rotator cuffs and rear shoulder region
- upright rows, barbell rows, t-bar rows
*use bodybuilding.com’s exercise database for proper exercise form
To gain strength and increase muscle mass with any given exercise in a routine, you need progression/progressive overload. If you can raise 200 lbs or at least 25% plus your body weight over your head (military press), you’ve obviously already got round and big shoulders. If you can press a 100 lbs dumbbell over your head at least once, you’d have big, round shoulders.
The correlation between strength and muscle mass is not direct but the relation is still there. Strength generation and force requires a certain amount of muscle fiber filaments. If you don’t have the necessary muscle fiber cross sections, you’d be weak. Lift heavy weights to get stronger and muscle mass for a given muscle group will eventually come, provided you maintain a calorie surplus muscle building diet.
Focus on heavy weights in the 5-8 rep range, the bodybuilding range for building mass and strength. For isolation, use higher reps in the 10-15 rep range. You want to train both the type I and II, slow and fast twitch muscle fibers for both strength and endurance. If you’re prioritizing shoulders on a split routine, do shoulders first in the workout. Pay attention to good form.
Sample shoulder mass routine for strength and size,
- standing military press 3×8, use 75% of 1 RM (1 RM is the most weight you can lift for 1 rep, ex. 1 RM is 100 lbs so 75% of 1 RM is 75 lbs)
- dumbbell arnold press 2×12, use 70% of 1 RM
- dumbbell lateral raise 2×15, use 70% of 1 RM; raise dbs to ear level, it’s not necessary to raise it any higher as full contraction is normally achieved at ear level
- dumbbell bent over rear raise 2×15, use 70% of 1 RM
*rest 2-3 minutes between sets and 2-3 minutes between exercises
Another routine that I’ve personally used with great success, this one involves compound supersetting two movements,
- A1- dumbbell shoulder press 6×4, 85% of 1 RM
- A2- lateral raise 6×12, 75% of 1 RM
- B1- standing military press 1 drop set of 10 reps, reduce weight by 20-25% each drop for 3-4 drops, see “shock methods” article
*A1/A2 are done one after another without rest, do 1 set of shoulder press followed by 1 set of lateral raise, rest 2-3 minutes and repeat
*B1 is a standalone with just 1 drop set, use 3-4 drops, for ex. 100 lbs for 10 reps, reduce to 80 lbs for 6 reps, reduce to 60 lbs for 4, reduce to 45 lbs for 3 reps
*Ensure progressive overload, proper rest, and mass eating with a calorie surplus. Shoulders are no different. They require heavy weights, progression, and a muscle building diet to grow.
*If you have pre-existing shoulder injuries, consult your doctor and therapist on the amount of weight you can handle. It is always best to start light coming off a shoulder injury and build your way back up slowly and prudently. Use good form. Avoid “humping” or swinging the weight up. There is no excuse.
On the subject of a proper muscle building diet, take nutrition very seriously because each muscle group, both small and large, grows in conjunction to bodyweight poundage gains. The body functions as one collective unit and not a serious of individual muscle parts. If your biceps are looking flat and lagging, chances are that your back isn’t growing either.
If you can barbell row 300 lbs for reps, your biceps would undoubtedly be stimulated with strength and mass gains as well. To handle the 300 lbs you’d have to be at a certain body weight with some base of musculature.
In other words, eat a surplus of calories. Eat a lot. Follow a muscle-building diet. Lift heavy weights and the muscle mass involved with pressing compound lifts will grow. Think of it this way… have you ever seen a 130 lbs guy with boulder shoulders? Do you see natural bodybuilders weighing 200 lbs with big shoulders?
So to sum up shoulder training for mass and strength, a general rule is to first reduce the training volume of direct shoulder training if they’re not responding or growing. If you’re not directly training shoulders, throw in some direct compound work. As you get stronger with the military and shoulder presses, mix in some isolation side lateral, front, and rear raises to balance out shoulder work.
Remember, you cannot effectively isolate any part of the shoulder muscle with isolation movements but you can direct more stress to certain regions. But first focus on heavy weights and form and the rest will take care of itself.
Train Hard. Train Safely. Train Smart.
If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com
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