Cracking the code: stubborn shoulders
For every lifter that's been weight training for a long period of time. They usually find that certain muscle groups are lagging. The 2 most common areas you hear people talk about are calves and shoulders. I'll admit calves, there is a very strong genetic component that comes into play that seems to be the limiting factor. Some people have a higher insertion point of the calve muscles which makes them harder to grow. However, shoulders I feel is more unlocking the right training method and angles of such training to crack the code and get them to grow. For me my shoulders used to always lag as I was much more chest dominate, I can almost look at a bench press and get my chest to grow but shoulders I really had to play around with and now I think they are one of my best muscle groups. Shoulders should always be priority if you are trying to sculpt a physique because if you had to pick just one muscle that when developed properly has the biggest impact on your overall appearance its the shoulders. When they are well developed they enhance the look of everything else. Your waist looks smaller and more tapered and combined with good quads your body takes on more of that desired "X" shape.
Below I will detail the approach I took and help you crack the code if you have stubborn shoulders or you just want to bring them to the next level.
Understanding the Anatomy
The first thing you need to do is stop thinking about shoulder training as simply "shoulders". There are 3 heads of the shoulder and what I have found is they all need to be trained differently. The Anterior deltoid is the front deltoid and is mainly involved in movements such as shoulder flexion raising the arm in front of you and also pressing out forward in conjunction with the chest. The medial deltoid performs vertical abduction and primarily lifts your shoulder out to the side. The posterior or rear deltoid moves the arms in horizontal abduction, moving your arms apart in a reverse fly type of motion.
I will now detail the methods in training each shoulder head.
Anterior Deltoid Training (Front Delt)
The anterior deltoid gets a lot of overlapping volume from other exercises. Bench press, incline press, the chest fly, and dips all incorporate the front delt in it. This is why you will notice in the program I will post below there is minimal front delt movements other than overhead press. Its already getting a good amount of volume by simply doing the other mentioned movements.
The once exercise that i do include is a dumbbell over head press except one change we are going to make is I want you to not use the bench at a 90° but to move it back usually 1 notch to about 110°. This will put more of the stress on that front delt and somewhat take out or use less of the other 2 heads of the shoulder. All 3 heads of the shoulder are more slow twitch muscle fibers which means the first thing you have to do is set your ego aside. We want to go light weight here on the overhead press. Pick a weight that you can explode up with then control a 3 second eccentric for 20-25 reps. For example if you have been using the 70lb dumbbells for sets of 8-12 your probably now going to use use the 30lb dumbbells. This will be done for only 5 sets per week split among 2 days which I will detail in the workout at the end.
Medial Deltoid Training (Mid Delt)
For the medial deltoid again we are going to use one exercise but we are going to use a lot of volume and metabolic training methods. This deltoid gets the least overlap out of the 3 heads from other exercises. So we are going to load them with a ton of volume and metabolic stress. These will be trained 3 days a week. The one exercise that we will be using is the standing dumbbells lateral raise. Again we are going to use light weight here on the normal working sets we are going to shoot for sets to failure around 15 to 20. What I want you to do is a traditional lateral raise as pictured above and raise the weight and control it down, it dont have to be 3 seconds like we use in the overhead press. Now as you lower the weight you will notice it reaches a point where the tension comes off toward the bottom of the movement, what you want to do is stop right before that and then go back up. The queue I tell people is to think if you were carrying a very wide suitcase that's usually the area where tension is lost, so don't bring them all the way into the body on your side. Now as you tire what I want you to do is rotate your hands inward and continue the set in a similar motion but you will notice it will almost turn into a dumbbell upright row which you will be stronger at and be able to get extra reps. Take each set to failure. Below you will see in the work out I call some sets "burnout sets" basically when you see that what I want you to do is run the rack. Meaning, lets say you start with the 15lb dumbbells, use the method above to go to failure. if your gym has 7.5lb go to those next and repeat until failure (if not use the 10lb), then go to the 5lb again go to failure, put those down and use just the weight of your arms until you cant take the burn anymore. That is how you grow wide delts!
Posterior Deltoid Training (Rear Delt)
This deltoid is often the most neglected but when developed this will stand out and give you a full complete shoulder. This delt does receive some overlap in back training, however like the mid delt it requires a good amount of volume. The exercise I have found that works best is the face pull not the rear delt fly. But I have kind of modified the face pull and I'v never seen anyone else doing it this way, but it will deliver the best contraction. What you need to do is find the long soft handles in the gym as pictured, put 2 of them on the cable machine. (I will have a video of this below because it's easier to visualize) Start by using a suicide grip and grip the handles straight out in front of you with your palms pointed forward like you were pushing someone away. Take a step back so there is tension on the cables and pull back and pull apart while keeping your hands in a forward facing motion so that you are almost striking a double bicep pose but with your palms still facing forward. Be sure to pull apart and squeeze, the handles will slide in the material. Do these with a weight you can get 15-20 with. That on top of your back workouts will be the only exercise you need for rear delts.
