Fitness Tips, Your Questions
"What shoulder exercises give you the best results? Is there a particular program or strategy you use? I know I'm doing something wrong because my neck and traps are often way too sore, and my shoulder gains seem to take forever, longer than one might expect."
The deltoids, i.e. shoulder muscles, are a trinity comprised of front delts, lateral delts, and rear delts. It is possible, and common, to work one or two of these parts while neglecting one or two parts. That, of course, would limit and slow down your results. Also, using sloppy technique, or weight that is too heavy, can shift the muscular tension away from the delts and dump it on the neck and traps. This is especially true when doing dumbbell front raises or upright row. We'll dig into it below.
In most of my fitness articles I lay out the four main pillars of muscle development, which will always be true for you and I and every human: (1) stress the muscle enough, (2) rest the muscle enough, (3) eat strategically, (4) time. Neglect one or two and your results will be set back by months, sometimes years. Your shoulders will muscularize, or not muscularize, depending on how you technician these four realms.
(L to R): 1, Good view of all three delts. 2, Front delts and middle delts. 3, Rear delts. 4, Most recent picture, middle delts, high points of the V-taper.
(1) Stress the Shoulder Muscles Enough, All Three Layers
All three layers of the delts have to be sufficiently stressed for enough growth stimulus to happen. This doesn't mean you have to kill yourself overdoing it, risking serious injury to this important body part. It does mean, however, you do have to work hard enough to trigger enough growth stimulus from the muscles to create new results. This is what I am doing in my current program.
Mixing Hypertrophy Lifting & Definition Lifting. Sets of 6-15, moderately heavy to heavy for hypertrophy lifting. Sets of 16-30, moderate to light for definition lifting. Rest anywhere from 10-90 seconds between sets, depending on how you mix and stack exercises. Increase the weight in small increments every three or four workouts. Mixing and stacking hypertrophy lifting and definition lifting has given me incredible results over the years.
I stick to only a few shoulder exercises. They work so well there is really no need to try to reinvent the wheel. The creativity comes, not in the exercises themselves, but in how you mix, stack, and superset them, fluctuate the rest, and gradually increase the weight every three or four workouts.
Bradford Press. Bradford presses are just phenomenal because they keep nonstop tension on the delts throughout the entire exercise, and, all three delt layers are hit. Your results will spike quickly just by doing this exercise consistently. A few important words of caution, though.
Do not lift heavy on Bradford presses. Going back and forth is mildly awkward for the shoulder, but not dangerous for most people if you keep the weight moderate to light and work in the 16-30 rep range. The nonstop trilateral tension will trigger an enormous amount of growth stimulus and definition at the same time. If you have preexisting shoulder problems, talk to your doctor first about this particular exercise.
Dumbbell Overhead Press. This exercise is, essentially, the Bradford press minus the backward movement and rear delt activation. (In clinical experiments, the front and middle delts were neuroelectrically activated at high levels, while rear delt activation was extremely low.) This is the exercise I tend to go heavier on, sets of 6-15, rest periods more in the 60-90 seconds range.
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press. This exercise targets the front delts (and upper pecs). This exercise, too, I tend to go heavier on, sets of 6-15, rest periods more in the 60-90 seconds range. A word of caution. There is nothing wrong with doing overhead press (Bradford or traditional) and incline bench press in the same workout, however, doing so really blasts the front delts. Keep that mind and modify the reps accordingly to avoid overtaxing the front delts and risking injury.
Additionally, I do not do dumbbell front raises or upright row. They put way too much unnecessary stress on the neck and traps, leaving them excessively sore and sometimes strained. Traps (and neck) usually get more than enough stimulus throughout other exercises.
Lateral flys. Lateral flys work the middle delts, which give the shoulders that lovely width when viewed from the front (the two high points of the V-taper). Like the Bradford press, I tend to go a bit lighter on lateral flys and increase the reps. I love to superset lateral flys with one of the previous exercises. The burn and the results are just stellar.
Widegrip Lat Pulldown, Rear Delt Nuanced. Widegrip lat pulldown is first and foremost a back exercise. However, the movement can be nuanced at the very end to blast the rear delts. After pulling down, hold that bottom position an extra second or two, then try to pull down a few millimeters further where the rear delts tense and burn. It might take a few times and some finagling to hit that sweet spot, but once you do, it will blast the rear delts fantastically. This is the only rear delt exercise I do (besides the Bradford press) because it works so well, and I do it on back day.
Circuits, Supersets. As much as possible, mix and stack the above exercises, and whatever other exercises work well for you, into a creative circuit or superset. This keeps the body from plateauing and forces it to keep adapting physiologically into new growth and definition.
Constant Modifications to Avoid Plateau. Without constant micro-modifications to your workouts you will plateau. Keep increasing the weight by a small amount every three or four workouts. Keep varying the rest periods between sets. Use rest-pause. Use drop-sets. Use up-sets. Constantly innovate these micro-modifications and your body will perpetually stay in adaptation mode, i.e., fitness improvement and perpetual results. I explain the meaning of these terms in my article about lats/back (see Fitness Articles Archive 2024, 6/30).
(2) Rest the Shoulder Muscles Enough
After traumatizing your shoulder muscles, they need around three full days to recover. If you did not take the muscles to threshold, and your fitness level is high, they can recover with two full days off. If you took the muscles to threshold, they will need a full three days to recover, possibly four, depending on your fitness level and other fitness activities. It is during the recovery period that the muscles are actually growing. They are not growing during the workout, they are breaking down at microscopic levels and merely initiating the hypertrophic cycle.
Learn to have an intuitive relationship with your muscles. Sometimes they will signal they are ready to go again earlier than expected, sometimes they will signal they need more time. Do not exercise emotionally. Do not exercise as an escape. Do not exercise with ego. These almost always lead to burnout and injury, and other physical and mental problems. Exercise based on physiological principles as you listen to your muscles and body.
(3) Eat Strategically
A couple of articles ago I went into great detail regarding eating, especially eating strategically for advanced exercisists or fitness pros. The article can be found at the Fitness Articles Archive 2023.
The bottom line with eating is, you will have to eat enough so your muscles have enough resources to create new growth. This means regularly feeding your body lean protein, healthy complex carbs, and healthy fats. Your shoulders, or any muscle for that matter, will not hypertrophy without enough nutritional resources to create new growth. If your body perceives a nutritional deficit it will start catabolizing its own resources to function. Translation: you will not grow, you will actually lose muscle. You must eat strategically to maintain an anabolic environment in your body.
(4) Time
Depending on your starting baseline, it will take time to build the delts you envision. If you are disciplined and diligent with your program, and you keep micro-modifying to avoid plateaus, and you eat strategically faithfully, you will see inspiring results within a few months and more and more every few months after that.
As I have said in my other articles, do not take the loser's route of steroids. Not only will it damage your body, God's gift to you, but it is glaringly unsustainable. Will you really be doing steroids for decades to sustain the results? Have you noticed the steady stream of bodybuilders and fitness pros dying in recent years? While the families are not always publicly forthcoming about the true cause of death, behind the scenes it is an open secret how and why they died.
The high purpose of advanced fitness is to celebrate God's gift to you, to maximize sustainable physical and mental health, to maximize functionality and life activities, to maximize a sense of dignity and healthy love for yourself, to give the gift of your very best body to another, to inspire others toward higher purposes in their fitness journey.
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