How to Build Big Shoulders

Heres a question a reader emailed me recently

Question: Jason, I have a question about shoulder training.
First, of all should I even train shoulders directly? Some people say they get enough work from other
upper body exercises.
And secondly, if you recommend training them, what are the best exercises?

Answer: First of all, yes, if you want to maximize muscle hypertrophy of the shoulders you should
train them directly. And, as is the case with every other muscle group you are trying to build you
want to train heavy.

You dont need to do 25 sets of lateral raises in every direction, though. Stick with a few of the big,
basic pressing exercises as the meat and potatoes of your shoulder training. Thats whats gonna
cause the most muscle growth.

Overhead pressing will also help increase your bench press strength as well.

Remember, the key to building any muscle group is progressive overload. You have to get stronger
on big compound movements. That is the secret to building muscle, and it works every time,
without fail.

The shoulder are muscles are technically known as the deltoids (or delts, for short). They consist of
three heads- the anterior, lateral and posterior; or in simpler terms- the front, side and rear delts.

The front delts get a lot of work from all of your standard chest pressing movements like the bench
press or dips. Because of this people make the argument that you dont need to overhead press. And
while technically that may be true, Ive seen very few people with huge shoulders who dont
overhead press. Plus, its just a manly, badass exercise.

As for the lateral or side delts, you may want to include some lateral raises in your program to fully
train them. Id only recommend this to non-beginners who have trained properly for a few years and
increased their overhead press pretty significantly.

The rear delts can be trained with low incline lateral raises by setting the bench to 15-35 degrees. On
all forms of lateral raises you want the elbows to be nearly straight. When you see someone doing
lateral raises with the arms bent almost to 90 degrees please ignore this no matter how big the
person may be. Its technically incorrect. The rear delts can also be trained with any type of rowing
movement that has your elbows out to your side and has you pulling them behind your body.

Below is a list of my favorite shoulder building exercises.

BEST SHOULDER EXERCISES

Hang Clean & Press

The first is the barbell hang clean and push press. Perform this exercise by bending over with a
barbell in your hands and a shoulder width grip. Start with the barbell just above your knees and be
sure to maintain perfect posture with your head in line with your spine, chest up and back arched.

Initiate by driving your hips forward and shrugging your shoulders. Pull the bar to your upper chest
then quickly flip it over and catch it there by dipping at the knees slightly.
Stand up all the way by powerfully exploding up out of the 1/4 squat position that you caught the
bar in and simultaneously press the bar straight up overhead to lockout, using the momentum
generated by your legs.

This exercise can be done with a standard straight barbell (though, I highly recommend you use a
good Olympic bar or your elbows may be screaming after a few weeks), angled or neutral grip bar or
a strongman log (my personal favorite).

Another variation of this exercise can be done with dumbbells. This allows for more natural motion
since your arms arent locked into a fixed range with the barbell. You can do these with two
dumbbells at once or do them one arm at a time.

This exercise will not only build big delts but also pack size on the traps and upper back while
simultaneously developing explosive power.

Beginners should focus on sets of 5-8 reps on the hang clean and press. Advanced lifters can bump
up the reps; especially if using the log as a strongman type event. In that case you might do as many
as 10-12, or even 15-20 reps. But those higher end rep ranges should only be used by guys who are
already very strong and pretty advanced in their training.

Military Press

shoulders_dumbbellpress11The standing military press is one of the best, most basic, old school,
badass exercises you can do. Stand up and press a bar or dumbbells overhead. Its the essence of
weight training. And if you work up to some big weights youll also have some big shoulders.

If you are already performing deadlifts and direct trap work in your program doing clean and presses
may prove to be too much to recover from. In that case you can simply stick with regular overhead
presses, minus the clean.

When pressing overhead with a bar I recommend trying a false or thumbless (keeping your thumbs
on the same side as your fingers).

You will find it less stressful on the elbows and shoulders and the bar path will feel more natural. I
thank my buddy Smitty from Diesel Strength for introducing me to that concept. Pressing with a
thumbs around the bar grip now feels awkward and pretty much terrible after doing it the other
way.

With dumbbells, try pressing with a neutral grip and palms facing you for variety.

On overhead presses we work up to 1-3 heavy, top end sets in the 5-8 range if youre a newbie or as
high as 10-12 for strong, advanced guys.

As always, heavy lifting is a better choice than light high rep training when it comes to building
muscle.

And lower rep sets target the Type IIB fibers, which grow faster than the slow twitch fibers.

Handstand Pushups

No discussion about how to build big shoulders would be complete without mentioning the
handstand pushup. This is as difficult as it sounds but can be modified for novice or intermediate
lifters. The easiest way to work up to a handstand pushup is to start by simply holding the position
for time while you keep your feet up against the wall.

When you can easily hold your bodyweight for sixty seconds start working eccentric only reps. Do
five singles and take five seconds to lower yourself. Work up to doing five sets of three, lowering in
6-8 seconds. After doing that for a few weeks you will be able to get your first rep on your own.

Once thats possible you should do one or two sets of one rep and a couple more eccentric only
reps. When you get to the point where you can do three reps try doing ten singles with about 45-60
seconds between them. When can do six reps youd want to do sets of three. So about half of what
you are capable of doing in one set. Progression on these will take time so be patient and keep
practicing.

Once you can do 8-10 reps usually (in about 4-6 months) it will be time to start increasing the range
of motion. To do this place your hands on boxes and lower your head between them. Ideally you
would want to start with thin rubber mats and add one every couple of weeks. If you dont have that
ability, stack some magazines or something in between the boxes to increase the range gradually.

Once you can do a set of 6-8 reps with your head all the way down between the boxes you should
have some pretty massive shoulder development, not to mention some overall full body strength
and athleticism.

Lateral Raise

These are normally done standing but if you have trouble targeting your side delts with standard
lateral raises try doing them on an incline bench set between 45 and 75 degrees. A slight forward
lean puts you in a position to hit the side delts more effectively.

When training the lateral raise you want to be sure you maintain constant tension and continuous
movement throughout the set.

Low Incline Lateral Raise

By lowering the bench to an angle of 15-35 degrees you will put more stress on the rear delts. These
muscles tend to be more slow twitch and respond best to slightly higher reps.

Face Pull

This is a great exercise for building up all of the muscles across your upper back and the back of your
shoulders. Attach a rope handle to a cable stack at about face height. Now row the handles towards
your face with your elbows up high and flared out to the side. Squeeze your shoulder blades
together for a second at the top. I recommend sets of 8-15 reps on the face pull. These can be also
be done with a hammer grip, which also involves the external rotator muscles to a greater extent.
Use both variations for balanced development.

The Ultimate Shoulder Workout

The majority of Renegade training programs have you training three days per week and I generally
recommend training a muscle group every 5-7 days. When youre a beginner you can use more
frequency than this for you first year.

I use a few different training splits such as:

Upper/Lower/Upper
Rotating Upper/Lower where you train upper twice one week, then lower twice the next week
Chest+Shoulders+Tris+Abs/ Back+Legs+Bis
Push/Pull/Lower
Chest+Tris/Back+Bis/Legs+Shoulders
Vertical pushing & pulling/Quad dominant/ Horizontal pushing & pulling/ Hip dominant (training 3
days per week and rotating the 4th day over to the following week)

One thing I dont do, however, is prescribe a typical pro bodybuilder style workout where one
particular muscle group gets blasted with 12-20 sets of 12-15 reps. That only works for genetic
freaks who are on steroids.

The natural lifter with average genetics needs far less volume. And their main focus needs to be on
getting strong.

Depending on the split above that you choose the program might be slightly different. But the
general theme is that you press heavy weights overhead once every 5-7 days for low reps. Then you
hit some volume work on lateral raises and face pulls.

Sample Shoulder Workout:

Day 1

Standing DB Press- 3 x 8, 6, 10 x 120

Lateral Raise- 4 x 10-12 x 30

This would be done on an upper body day, a push day or a vertical push day if you follow a
movement pattern split

Day 2

Rack deadlift or high pull (to work the traps) 3 x 5-8 x 120

Face Pull- 4 x 10-12 x 30

What About Nutrition?

No muscle group will grow without proper fuel. So be sure to eat one gram of protein per pound of
bodyweight per day and 1.5-3 grams of carbs. Keep fats low to moderate at around .4 grams per
pound of bodyweight.

Now you know how to build big shoulders. Dont get caught up on doing more work. Just focus on
the basics and keep getting strong. Thats the only proven plan that works