This is a two-part series on shoulder muscle growth. If you’ve already read Part I, you can move on to Part II by clicking HERE.
Three-dimensional, capped shoulders create a V-shaped image for your upper body, making you appear thinner, more appealing, and athletic. It also makes your arms appear much more muscular if you have prominent shoulders that appear to separate from the rest of your arm’s muscles.
Unfortunately, many men make the same frequent blunders that prevent them from gaining bulk on their shoulders. So, in today’s piece, I’d like to go over eight of the most common faults that are holding you back from bulking up your shoulders.
Mistake One: Not Training Through a Full Range of Motion
First and first, most people do not train in a full range of motion, particularly when performing exercises such as overhead presses. If you go all the way down every time you go to the gym, take a look at how most individuals complete their barbell, dumbbell, and machine overhead presses. Most people just lower the weight until their upper arms are positioned just about parallel to the floor before pressing it back up.
Instead, lower the weight all the way down until your hands are at least at ear level, and then go even lower until the dumbbells are roughly the same height as your shoulders. This is advantageous because the lower portion of the workout activates the deltoids the most. The upper part, on the other hand, is mostly determined by the triceps.
If we break the motion of an overhead press into three parts: lower, middle, and upper, we can see that the triceps are primarily involved in locking out the weight during the upper portion, rather than your shoulders. In the bottom and middle parts of the workout, your shoulders are fully engaged.
In addition to the fact that your shoulders are more active in the lower and middle sections, research shows that training with a wider range of motion is better for muscular growth in general.
For example, studies show that full squats result in greater glute and adductor growth than half squats, while full range of motion curls result in more bicep growth than partial curls.
Mistake Two: Concentrating on the Front Delts While Neglecting the Side and Rear Deltoid
Another typical mistake is focusing too much on the front delts and not enough on the side and back delts. This is usually done unintentionally, but it can impact even skilled bodybuilders.
There are two reasons why you may perform a disproportionate quantity of volume for your front delts. For starters, the overhead press is a must-do shoulder exercise for everyone. Unfortunately, as beneficial an exercise as the overhead press is, it predominantly targets the front deltoids. Meanwhile, the side and especially the rear deltoids receive far less activity.
The second and more serious issue is that you already train your front delts extensively with all of your horizontal pressing workouts, such as the dumbbell and barbell bench press. So, when you train your chest, you unintentionally train the front region of your shoulders a lot.
Even your rear delts will be activated to a significant level as you practice various pulling exercises such as pull-ups, rows, and, in particular, Bent over high rows. However, this is not the case with the side delts, which are particularly vital for giving your shoulders a wide appearance.
Really Attempt to Get Those Side Delts…
With the exception of upright rows, which can cause shoulder impingement, most other compound workouts, including as the bench press, pull-ups, and rows, do not significantly activate your side deltoids. That is why you should focus on exercising your side delts during shoulder workouts.
Isolation exercises for the front delts, such as dumbbell frontal lifts, are not required by most lifters. However, almost every lifter can benefit from doing more side and rear delt workouts, such as dumbbell lateral raises and cable reverse flies.
In addition to the aesthetic benefits, working on the side and rear delts improves posture and shoulder health. A study published in the journal of clinical biomechanics discovered that strengthening the posterior head of the deltoid muscle helps to maintain shoulder joint integrity and minimizes the chance of a shoulder injury.
Mistake Three: Exercising Your Shoulders at the End of Your Workout
Many people place shoulder exercises at the end of their routines. Many research, including a randomized controlled trial, suggest that the exercises and muscle groups you train initially in a program produce the largest results. However, many people who want to increase their shoulders do not workout them first.
If your split training regimen includes chest, shoulders, and triceps into a single push workout, you will most likely begin with movements such as bench presses and dumbbell presses. This implies you’ll put a lot of strain on your shoulders before you start doing shoulder workouts. That is acceptable if your primary objective is to develop your chest, but if you want to grow your shoulders, you should focus on them first.
This is why I like to combine shoulders, biceps, and triceps into a single arm workout on a different day than my chest and back workout. Having an arm-specific day when you may start from scratch with shoulder exercises that target your mid and rear deltoids, such as bent arm lateral raises and dumbbell reverse flies, can be highly good for balancing out your shoulder shape.
Even if you begin your workout with overhead presses, which focus more of your front delts, starting with shoulder exercises can help you lift substantially more weight than if you finish with them. This, in turn, will promote muscular growth.
Mistake Four: Focusing on Your Traps Instead of Your Deltoids
Another common mistake is letting your traps take over for your deltoids. This is not true for everyone, but some people feel shoulder exercises, particularly side delt exercises, in their traps rather than their shoulders. Because of the higher level of trap activation, their traps expand rapidly, leaving their shoulders behind.
This can be a difficult circumstance because stimulating your delts requires you to also engage your traps in the movement. The good news is that there are a few steps you can take to limit trap recruitment.
First, static stretch your traps before beginning your shoulder workout. This reduces future muscle activation during exercise. Bend one arm behind your back and pull your head down to the side towards your shoulder to stretch your traps properly. You should hold that position for 60 seconds on each side for one to two sets before training your shoulders.
Another effective approach to train your side delts while decreasing trap involvement is to push your dumbbells as far away from your sides as possible as you pull them up during a lateral rise, rather than simply raising them straight up.
A Parting Word from Roaming Hart Fitness…
This concludes Part I of our two-part series on how to build bigger and better shoulders. This is a lot of material for our brains to handle, so we decided to divide it down into two smaller (and more palatable) blogs. If you’re ready, click here to proceed to Part II. We appreciate you taking the time to learn more about creating a better self, and we are glad that you have included us in your journey!