The shoulders are made up of 3 separate muscle attachments, or heads. These are the front, side, and rear heads of the deltoids. To build wider shoulders you need to build the side deltoid head. Most overhead press exercises target the front deltoids more than the side delts. If you use dumbbells to do your overhead presses you’ll involve your side deltoids more because you can lower the weights to the sides of your head. To really isolate the side deltoid heads you need to do side lateral raises. To do them you simply stand, or sit, with a dumbbell in each hand with the palms facing you and raise the weights away from your body in an arcing motion until you arms are parellel to the floor. It sound easy enough, but there are a few things you can do to make them more effective. One is that you should keep the front of your hands tilted downward a bit like if you were pouring from a pitcher. ou should also keep a slight bend in the elbows. ou can do side lateral raises with dumbbells, cables, or machines.

  To really add some intensity to your shoulder workouts you should try some supersets of side lateral raises followed immediately by dumbbell presses. This pre exhaust technique will give you that pump that you need for more muscle growth.

  Since you may get enough work for your front delts from chest exercises you’ll probably want do more sets for your side delts during your workouts. Give it a little time and you’ll build that shoulder width.

  To avoid injury and get the most out of them, it’s important to learn proper squat form. You’ll want the barbell you’re squatting to be placed on your trapezius muscles - not on the back of your neck. It may take some experimentation to find the best spot to place the barbell when you squat and when you do you may not even need to put a pad on the bar - especially if you have developed traps.

  When it comes to squatting you need to arch your lower back, not bend it, as you lower into a squat rep. Get your behind as far behind you as possible and stop when your upper thighs are parellel to the floor. Then use the muscles of the quadriceps, hamstrings, and hips to squat the weight up. You can squat deeper if you want, but this depends a lot on how flexible your ankles and other lower body joints are.

  Where you place your feet when you squat depends on how tall you are and whether you’re weight training in more of a bodybuilding style or more of a powerlifting style. Either way, you need to concentrate on using your hips and not your knees as you lower into a squat rep. Putting to much stress on your knees when you squat isn’t good for them.

  Once you get your squat form down you should be able to build a lot of size and power from it and get the gains in overall muscularity you’re looking for.

  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.

  To perform dips to target the pectoral muscles you need to do then on a dip bar rather than between 2 benches. It’s even better if the dip bar is a bit wider so you’re not hitting the triceps as much as the chest. When you do dips for the chest muscles you don’t want your body to be straight becuase this will also target the triceps more. Try to get your lower body behind you so you are dipping at an angle like you would be if you were doing decline presses. Since you are likely strong enough to do a lot of dips this way you should wear a belt that allows you to add weights to it. As you do the exercise try to focus on getting the chest to do most of the work rather than the triceps.

  Doing dips in the style that targets the chest muscles is an old school weight training exercise that isn’t utilized enough by todays lifters. It’s the perfect exercise to do in any chest routine after flat and incline bench presses. Try them out to build more muscular, chiseled pectorals.

  The first step to increasing bench press strength is to make sure you’re using proper lifting form when you perform it. If you do sloppy bench reps you won’t be building as much strength in your chest as you wouild if you used good lifting form. It’s okay to have your back arched, but you need to keep your behind on the bench when you beench press. You should also contract your upper back muscles and pull your shoulder blades inward to pop your pecs out. Always lower the weight under control, do not drop it on your chest. When the weight touches your chest try to explode it upward.

  One great technique to increase your bench press strength is to identify where you are at your weakest during a rep and doing some sets that focus only on that part of the movement. Do this by setting up a squat rack so you are forced to only do the part of the bench press rep that you are weak on.

  You also need to make sure you don’t get overzealous and end up overtraining your chest from too many bench sets. If you’re still sore from your last bench press workout ou need to take another day or 2 off before you do them again.

  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.

  Building the side heads of the shoulder muscles will help you add the most width to your upper body because they are the outermost muscles on each side of it. If you’ve been weight training for a while and usually start your shoulder workouts with military presses you may want to start with dumbbell presses instead since there’s a good chance that your front deltoids are more developed than your side deltoids. With dumbbell presses you can lower the weights to the sides of your head which will force the side delts to do most of the work. When you do military presses you have to lower the weight to in front of your head which will work the front deltoids more.

  Side lateral raises are another great weight training exercise for the side deltoid heads. Start with a dumbbell in each hand with your palms facing your body and raise the dumbbells out to the sides until you arms are parellel to the floor. At the top of the movement try to have your hands in a position with the back of the hands a bit higher than the front of them (like you would when you’re pouring something). Keep your reps per set higher when you do side lateral raises than you do for most exercises. Side laterals raises can also be done with cables and some weight training machines.

  To really hit the side shoulders hard you can do some pre-exhaustion sets - supersets of side lateral raises follwed immediately by dumbbell presses. If you’re side deltoid heads are underdeveloped this technique will quickly build them up.

  Of course you should do some front and rear deltoid exercises during your shoulder weight training workouts, but for wider shoulders you need to make sure you target the side deltoids more since they don’t get as much work when you train other muscles.

  To bench press properly you need to keep your butt on the bench while performing the exercise. Keep your feet on the floor and you’ll get a small natural arch in your back. Pull your shoulders blades inward and downward and contract your upper back muscles to “pop” your chest out so most of the resistence is targeting more directly on your chest muscles. Lower the bar under control until it touches your chest and try to explode the weight upward. Use a spotter on your heavy bench press sets if you can. If you don’t use a spotter you need to be absolutely sure you can get 1 more rep before you try it. Better safe than sorry.