Weight Training Tips and Articles

Top Shoulder Exercises

Increasing the size and width of the shoulder, or deltoid, muscles is a must for anybody trying to build optimal muscularity through weight training. When you build more muscle in the shoulders it will cause your midsection to appear smaller by comparison. This is what leads to the v-shaped physique that most bodybuilders are after. If you perform the top shoulder exercises during your workouts, bigger deltoids can be yours.

Many of the top shoulder exercises involve pressing weight overhead. Other exercises for the deltoids, known as laterals, involve raising dumbbells or cables with the resistance focused on one of the three heads of the shoulder muscles. Overhead pressing exercises will help you build more thickness throughout the shoulders, while laterals will help develop every individual head of the muscles.

The military press is the most popular of the top shoulder weight training exercises to perform. They are done in a standing or seated position. You may put too much pressure on your lower back if you do heavy military presses while standing or while seated without back support. Performing military presses while seated on a bench with back support is without a doubt one of the top shoulder exercises - as long as you make sure to lower the barbell to your chin or in front of your neck. Lowering the barbell behind the neck can lead to injury, so you may want avoid doing overhead presses this way.

Dumbbell presses are another one of the best shoulder exercises. Doing overhead presses with dumbbells may be superior to doing them with a barbell since you can lower the weights to the sides of your shoulders without your head getting in the way. This will help focus more of the resistance on the side head of the shoulders. By contrast, military presses tend to work the front deltoids more. Seated dumbbell presses with back support is certainly one of the best shoulder exercises to work the entire shoulder area.

Laterals done with dumbbells or cables are the top shoulder exercises for targeting each individual head of the muscles. Considering the amount of work the front deltoids get from chest and overhead pressing exercises, you may want to focus mostly on training the side and rear delts with laterals. You’ll want your shoulders to be proportionate. If you want to increase the width of your shoulders, side laterals are the top shoulder exercise to perform. Rear laterals are the best exercise to help you build the rear heads of the shoulders to be in proper proportion to the front and side deltoids. Of course, you can do front lateral raises as well if you feel that you need to build up the front heads of the shoulder muscles. You don’t need to go very heavy when you do laterals. Just make sure that you feel the resistance in the head of the shoulder muscle that you’re training.

Many weight lifters train their trapezius muscles with their shoulders. The top shoulder exercises for building the traps are barbell and dumbbell shrugs. Upright rows are another excellent exercise for the traps.

When you perform the top shoulder exercises during your weight training routine, you’ll be well on your way to increasing the width of your upper body.

Best Triceps Exercises

When it comes to building bigger arms, the biceps seem to be king. Many weight trainers focus most of their arm building efforts on biceps exercises. However, the triceps actually make up more of the upper arms size. Because of this, you need to do the best triceps exercises for optimal arm size.

The close grip bench is considered one of the best triceps weight training exercises. It will certainly work your triceps muscles hard. However, you will be working the inner pecs when you do close grip benches, and you may feel pain in your wrists if you lower the bar all of the way down to your chest. If you want to avoid these things, you can try another one of the best triceps exercises - reverse grip bench presses. It’s basically a bench press done with an underhand grip on the bar. Once you learn how to do these right, you won’t feel it as much in the chest or the wrists.

Triceps extensions are among the best triceps exercises and can be done many different ways. The most popular form of triceps extensions are called “skull crushers”. These are basically lying triceps extensions. They get their name from the fact that you have to lower the bar to your head. Overhead triceps extensions done with a barbell, dumbbell, or cable are also very popular.

Some of the best triceps exercises involve cables. You’ll see many weight trainers doing triceps pushdowns, usually with a straight bar. Another popular variation is to do them with a rope. Both of these exercises will allow you to contract the triceps muscles hard at the end of a rep. They make great finishers to a triceps workout.

Many of the best triceps exercises can be done one arm at a time. Overhead triceps extensions with a dumbbell in one hand and kickbacks are the most popular. You can also do cable exercises one arm at a time.

Once you start doing the best triceps exercises, you’ll certainly notice an overall increase in the size of the upper arms. Do these exercises with high intensity to coax them into more growth.

Best Biceps Exercises

There isn’t a male weight trainer alive who doesn’t want to build bigger biceps. Big arms will give you a powerful look, especially when wearing a short sleeved shirt. Anyone who wants to build bigger and thicker arms needs to do the best biceps exercises.

All of the best biceps exercises involve curling a weight using the upper arm muscles. You can use a lot of variety in how you perform exercises for the biceps, with the ability to change the angles and grip with which you lift the weight.

The most popular of the best biceps exercises is the basic barbell curl. Most biceps workouts are started off with these. You simply curl a barbell towards your chin to perform it. Once you get to a point where you can’t get any more reps with good form, you can use a little body english to get some extra “cheat” reps.

Another one of the best bicep exercises is the dumbbell curl. Most weight trainers start this exercises with their arms at their sides and the palms facing them while they grip the dumbbells. As you curl the weight, you turn your wrists so that they are in the same position as they would be in with a barbell curl. You can do them while standing or seated on a bench.

Hammer curls are the best biceps exercise for building the brachialis muscle that’s located on the sides of the upper arms between the biceps and triceps. You start out in the same position you would with a normal dumbbell curl, but keep the wrists in the same position as you curl the weight. They sort of look like you’re using a hammer.

Some of the best biceps exercises to finish off your workouts with are preacher curls and cable curls. Preacher curls will give your biceps a nice stretch at the beginning of a rep. This is great for building fuller looking bicep muscles. Cable curls are a great exercise to do some high rep sets or drop sets to end your biceps workouts off with a nice pumped feeling in the arms.