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.

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.

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.

  While most biceps exercises will hit the brachialis indirectly, there are some exercises that you can do that will target it more specifically. Hammer curls are the best exercise for building the brachialis. To do them you take a dumbbell in each hand with the palms facing you and your thumbs forward like you were going to do normal dumbbell curls, but instead of rotating your wrists on the way up you keep your hands in a fixed position as you do the reps. At the end of a repitition your hands should be in a position like if you were using a hammer. Some gyms have curls bars with grips that allow you to do hammer curls with both arms at the same time. Do some sets of hammer curls during your biceps workout to target the brachialis.

  Another exercise that will hit the brachialis is the reverse grip barbell curl. You basically do a normal barbell curl but with an overhand grip rather than an underhand one. You won’t be able to use near as much weight while doing reverse curls as you would for normal ones. This exercise will also hit the back of the forearms.

  Make sure to do some exercises targeting the brachialis as part of your weight training routine and you will gain a thicker look in your upper arms.

  One great technique to use for any biceps exercise is to get a few extra “cheat” reps when you’re doing a set of curls after you’ve done as many with good form as possible. Once you get to the point where can’t do another rep with good form bend your back a bit and straighten it to get the weight up. When you have the weight at the top part of a rep lower it as slowly as possible. Doing this allows you to take advantage of the negative part of a repitition when you’re doing sets of biceps exercises. This should give you a great pump in the bis and give you a better chance at more muscle growth in the arms. You can use cheat reps on pretty much any biceps exercise.

  Another great way to add some high intensity weight training into your biceps workout is to do some drop sets. To do drop sets for biceps do a set of curls and when you get to failure drop the weight and do more reps. You can drop the weight a few times if you want to get a great burn in the biceps. Barbell, dumbbell, cable, preacher, or concentration curls will all work well for drop sets. Drop sets are best used as a finisher to a biceps workout.

  To do reverse grip bench presses for the triceps you simply lay on the bench and grip the bar with an underhand, rather than overhand, grip. To get more focus on the triceps you should grip the bar a bit wider than you do for normal bench presses. Then you do reps just like you would if you were bench pressing, lowering the weight to the chest and lifting it to arms length. You’ll definitely feel it in the triceps when you do this.

  Reverse grip bench presses are an underused exercise. You’ll hardly ever see anybody doing them at the gym. This is probably because they do take some getting used to. Don’t expect to be able to do near as much weight as you do when you’re bench pressing. In fact, you should start very light and get used to doing reverse grip benches during your tricep workouts before you start going heavier. Once you get used to them, you may find that the reverse grip bench presses are a better triceps exercise for you than close grip benches.

  Many weight trainers start their shoulder workouts off with military presses to the front. This is a great exercise for building the shoulders, but if you’ve been lifting weights for a while and have built some muscle size you may overdevelop your front deltoids as compared to the side and rear delts. Many chest exercises like the bench and incline press involve the front deltoids so you may not need to do as much work on them when you do your actual shoulder workout. Because of this you may want to start your deltoid workout with dumbbell presses. Dumbbell presses will allow you put more of the resistence on the side delts.

  Because of the work your front deltoids get from chest exercises and your rear deltoids get from back exercises you should do more exercises for the side delts when you train your shoulders. Building the side head of the shoulder muscles will help add width to them. Besides dumbbell presses, you can do many variations of side laterals to build wider shoulders. You can do side lateral raises with dumbbells, cables, or machines.

  You should also do a few sets of rear lateral raises for the rear deltoids since they only get some secondary work from back exercises. You want to develop each head of the deltoids as evenly as possible so you may want to avoid doing too much direct work on the front delts if they are overdeveloped during your shoulder workouts. Front lateral raises may not be necessary because of this.

  You can train your trapezius muscles with the shoulders if you want. The best trapezius exercise is the shrug. You can do shrugs with a barbell or dumbbells. To get the most out of heavy shrugs you should use chalk or wrist straps to assist your grip.

  Here’s a sample shoulder workout with most of the focus on the side deltoid heads.

Dumbbell presses: 3-4 sets

Dumbbell side laterals: 2-3 sets

Cable side laterals: 2-3 sets

Rear laterals: 2-3 sets

Shrugs: 3-4 sets

Drop set of your choice to finish with.

  Because the shoulders (besides the side head) are involved in so many upper body exercises it’s easy to overtrain them. A shoulder routine like this should help you avoid overdoing it and decrease the likelihood of injury.

  While you should use proper form on all of your weight training exercises to prevent injuries and build real strength, you may want to start your biceps routine with heavy cheat curls. Cheat curls will get the blood flowing in the biceps quickly and allow you to get started with a good pump. Take a weight you can do 5 or 6 curls with good form and do 10 to 12 reps. To do the secong half of the set use some body english to get the weight up, hold it at the top for a second, and slowly lower it under control. After a couple of cheat curl sets do the rest of your biceps exercises with better form, maybe cheating a bit to get an extra rep or 2.

  When you do dumbbell curls for the biceps you should start the exercise with your palms facing you and rotate your hands as you curl so your hands are in the same position at the top of the movement as they would be for barbell curls. This will work the biceps better than just keeping the hands in the same position throughout the exercise.

  To hit the brachialis muscle between the biceps and triceps more directly you can do a few sets of hammer curls or reverse grip barbell curls. Hammer curls are a lot like dumbbell curls except that you don’t rotate your hands. You basically raise and lower your hands like if you were using a hammer. Reverse grip barbell curls will work the forearms as well as the brachialis.

  Towards the end of your biceps workout you can do a few sets of precher curls, cable curls, or dumbbell curls while seated on an incline bench. to finish your biceps routine you should do a couple of drop sets to end your workout with a nice pump in the arms.

  The most popular triceps weight training exercise is the tricep extension. You can do triceps extensions many different ways - standing or seated (also known as french presses), lying (also known as skull crushers), or with cables and weight training machines. The variety of ways you can perform tricep extensions allows you to constantly change your triceps weight training routine and hit the muscle from many different angles.

  Close-grip bench presses are another great exercise for the triceps if you perform them correctly. You’re better off not lowering the weight all the way to your chest when you do close-grip bench presses because you could hurt your wrists. Stopping the weight a few inches above your chest will still hit the triceps hard.

  One great triceps exercise that is rarely performed is the reverse-grip bench press. Reverse-grip bench presses are basically bench presses done with an underhand grip on the bar. This exercise does take some time to get used to the movement, but is very effective for adding size to the triceps through bench pressing (you really don’t feel reverse benches as much in your chest muscles if you do them right). The secret to targeting the triceps with reverse-grip benches is to use a wider grip and lower the weight to about the point where your chest and abdomen meet. Be very careful when you first try this exercise in your triceps weight training routine - it will take a few weeks to get used to.

  Cable pressdowns with a bar or a rope are great exercises to do towards the end of your triceps workouts. Don’t go too heavy, and make sure to get a nice muscle contraction at the bottom of each rep.

  To finish your triceps routine off you should do a couple of drop sets with tricep extensions or cable pressdowns. Another great triceps workout finisher are supersets of lying tricep extensions followed immediately by close-grip bench presses with the same weight.

Sample Triceps Routine:

Triceps Extensions (however you want to do them): 2-3 sets

Close or Reverse Grip Benches: 2-3 sets

Different kind of Triceps Extensions: 2-3 sets

Triceps Pushdowns: 2-3 sets

Drop sets or Lying Triceps Extensions/Close-grip Bench superset: 2 sets

  Try heavy cheat curls at the beginning of your biceps weight training workouts to get the arms pumped up fast. You can do cheat curls with a barbell or dumbbells, which ever you prefer.

  To perform heavy cheat curls use a weight that you can do with pretty good form for a few reps and force yourself to get 8 to 10 reps with it. To cheat when you curl bend forward at the waist a bit to get the weight started upward and curl the weight to the top position as you straighten your back. The trapezius muscles are likely to come into play as well when you do cheat curls during your biceps workouts as you may need to shrug your shoulders to help get the weight up. The key to doing heavy cheat curls is in the negative, or lowering part of the exercise. Lower the weight slowly and under control. Barbell and dumbbell cheat curls are 2 of those rare weight training exercises where you can take full advantage of the negative part of an exercise without needing a spotter.

  When you do heavy cheat curls, cheat within reason. Don’t try to curl a weight so heavy that you may hurt your lower back. Just use a weight that will allow you to work your biceps hard on the negative part of the exercise, not a weight that’s too heavy to control on the way down.

  After 2 or 3 sets of heavy cheat curls you should have a nice pump in your arms. After this, do the rest of your sets of curls with proper form - keeping your back straight and not shrugging the shoulders to get the weight up.