How To Build Shoulder Muscles

If you want to have a muscular physique, you must build shoulder muscles. Developing huge delts will make your upper body appear strong and powerful and can add to that v-tapered look that so many bodybuilders are after. The beauty of it is that you only need a few minutes each week to build shoulder muscles.

Many serious lifters will argue that underneath clothes, muscular shoulders make the greatest contribution toward the overall appearance of the upper body.

The shoulder is a three-headed muscle that helps you in lifting and rotating your arms. Your shoulder is made up of anterior (front), medial (middle), and posterior (rear) regions.

Using a raise and an overhead press is more than enough to stimulate all three heads of the muscle.

An overhead press is the underlying foundation of any training program to build shoulder muscles. You will be hard pressed to find another lift out there that will match the shoulder-stimulating power of an overhead press. Although both dumbbells and barbells can be used for overhead presses, dumbbells offer quicker results.

Working with dumbbells helps you to move naturally and stops your stronger arm from doing the majority of the work when you are training to build shoulder muscles. Also, using a barbell puts part of the strain on your upper chest instead of allowing you to focus on your shoulders exclusively.

The most important exercise when it comes to building shoulder muscles is the seated overhead dumbbell press. The bench that you use for this exercise should have a vertical support for your back. Push the dumbbells up to the point where your elbows almost lock out and then steadily lower them back down to your shoulders.

Next up is the basic side lateral raise with dumbbells—use this exercise in order to build shoulder muscles. An isolation exercise, side laterals will help to target the medial head of the shoulder. Building up the medial head is a great way to increase the overall width of your upper body.

To start, bend your knees just a bit, grab a pair of dumbbells and hold them with your palms facing your body. Bring the dumbbells up to shoulder level while keeping your elbows slightly bent, before bringing them back to the starting position.

If you are trying to get big and strong shoulders, the only exercises you need are the side lateral raise and overhead press. You don’t need to do a lot of direct work to build shoulder muscles, since your shoulders get stimulated with almost every upper body exercise that you perform.

Did you know that if you do too much to build your shoulder muscles, you can actually hinder your results? Keeping this fact in mind, I recommend that you should avoid isolation exercises for the anterior and posterior heads.

The reason is that the anterior heads get really stressed during chest presses and the posterior heads get stressed when performing rowing movements for the back. Doing a few extra sets once in a while is fine, but you should really focus on trying to minimize the volume.

Do not focus on quantity when you build shoulder muscles; focus on quality instead.

Shoulder routines you can try….

Shoulder Routine #1

Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press – 2 sets of 5-7 repsStanding Dumbbell Side Laterals – 1-2 sets of 10-12 reps

If you simply must continue doing isolation exercises for the anterior and posterior heads, use the following routines.

Shoulder Routine #2

Seated Overhead Dumbbell Press – 2 sets of 5-7 repsStanding Dumbbell Side Laterals – 1-2 sets of 10-12 repsStanding Front Dumbbell Raise – 1 set of 10-12 repsSeated Rear Lateral Dumbbell Raise – 1 set of 10-12 reps

And that’s really all you need.

Push yourself to concentric muscular failure on each set where you can’t do any further reps without losing form. Maximize your results by logging down what you have accomplished every week and continuously improve your previous weeks score in terms of the number of reps or resistance.

The above is covered in the full-blown, jam-packed muscle-building success program created by Sean Nalewanyj, a lifetime natural bodybuilder and fitness author. For more information on the program, including how to build shoulder muscles, click here.