Weight Training Tips and Articles

Building More Shoulder Width

  Building wider shoulders is very important to anybody who’s into weight training or bodybuilding. Added shoulder width will help create a Herculean physique to give your body a look of strength and power. It will also give the illusion of a smaller waist, even if you don’t decrease the size of your midsection. Because of this you should focus on building more shoulder width during your deltoid workouts.

  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.

Shoulder Weight Training Workouts

  If you weight train, building bigger, wider shoulders is a must for that Herculean look most men are striving for. The shoulder, or deltoid, muscles are made up of the front, side, and rear attachments, or heads. For total deltoid development you need to do some specific training for each head of the shoulder muscles.

  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.

Tips For Wider Shoulders

  The shoulder, or deltoid, muscle is made up of 3 different heads, or attachments - the front, side, and rear. The front heads of the shoulder muscles get a ton of work when you do weight training exercises for the chest and the rear heads get some work when you do certain upper back exercises. Because of this you should focus most of your shoulder weight training workouts on hitting the side heads of the shoulders.

  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.