How to Build Big Shoulders

Written by Jason Ferruggia Topics: Fitness

In this post we’re gonna talk about how to build big

shoulders. I’ll give you a quick bit of anatomy on
the shoulders and then we’ll get into the best
shoulder exercises and the ultimate shoulder
workout.
Here’s a question a reader emailed me recently…

Question: Jason, I have a question about shoulder training.

First, of all should I even train shoulders directly? Some people say they get
enough work from other upper body exercises.

And secondly, if you recommend training them, what are the best exercises?
Answer: First of all, yes, if you want to maximize muscle hypertrophy of the
shoulders you should train them directly. And, as is the case with every other
muscle group you are trying to build you want to train heavy.

You don’t need to do 25 sets of lateral raises in every direction, though. Stick with
a few of the big, basic pressing exercises as the meat and potatoes of your
shoulder training. That’s what’s gonna cause the most muscle growth.

Overhead pressing will also help increase your bench press strength as well.

Remember, the key to building any muscle group is progressive

overload. You have to get stronger on big compound movements.
That is the “secret” to building muscle, and it works every time,
without fail.

The shoulder are muscles are technically known as the deltoids (or delts, for
short). They consist of three heads- the anterior, lateral and posterior; or in
simpler terms- the front, side and rear delts.

The front delts get a lot of work from all of your standard chest
pressing movements like the bench press or dips. Because of this people make
the argument that you don’t need to overhead press. And while technically that
may be true, I’ve seen very few people with huge shoulders who don’t
overhead press.

Plus, it’s just a manly, badass exercise.

As for the lateral or side delts, you may want to include some lateral raises in
your program to fully train them. I’d only recommend this to non-beginners who
have trained properly for a few years and increased their overhead press pretty
significantly.

The rear delts can be trained with low incline lateral raises by setting the bench
to 15-35 degrees.
On all forms of lateral raises you want the elbows to be nearly straight. When you
see someone doing lateral raises with the arms bent almost to 90 degrees please
ignore this no matter how big the person may be. It’s technically incorrect.

The rear delts can also be trained with any type of rowing movement that has
your elbows out to your side and has you pulling them behind your body.

Below is a list of my favorite shoulder building exercises.

BEST SHOULDER EXERCISES

Hang Clean & Press
The first is the barbell hang clean and push press. Perform this exercise by
bending over with a barbell in your hands and a shoulder width grip. Start with
the barbell just above your knees and be sure to maintain perfect posture with
your head in line with your spine, chest up and back arched.

Initiate by driving your hips forward and shrugging your shoulders. Pull the bar to
your upper chest then quickly flip it over and catch it there by dipping at the
knees slightly.

Stand up all the way by powerfully exploding up out of the 1/4 squat position that
you caught the bar in and simultaneously press the bar straight up overhead to
lockout, using the momentum generated by your legs.

This exercise can be done with a standard straight barbell (though, I highly
recommend you use a good Olympic bar or your elbows may be screaming after
a few weeks), angled or neutral grip bar or a strongman log (my personal
favorite).

Another variation of this exercise can be done with dumbbells. This allows for
more natural motion since your arms aren’t locked into a fixed range with the
barbell. You can do these with two dumbbells at once or do them one arm at a
time.
This exercise will not only build big delts but also pack size on the traps and
upper back while simultaneously developing explosive power.

Beginners should focus on sets of 5-8 reps on the hang clean and press.
Advanced lifters can bump up the reps; especially if using the log as a strongman
type event. In that case you might do as many as 10-12, or even 15-20 reps. But
those higher end rep ranges should only be used by guys who are already very
strong and pretty advanced in their training.

High rep clean and presses are grueling, but awesome.

Military Press
The standing military press is one of the best,
shoulders_dumbbellpress11
most basic, old school, badass exercises you
can do. Stand up and press a bar or
dumbbells overhead. It’s the essence of
weight training. And if you work up to some
big weights you’ll also have some big
shoulders.

If you are already performing deadlifts

and direct trap work in your program doing
clean and presses may prove to be too much
to recover from. In that case you can simply stick with regular overhead presses,
minus the clean.

When pressing overhead with a bar I recommend trying a false or thumbless

(keeping your thumbs on the same side as your fingers).

You will find it less stressful on the elbows and shoulders and the bar path will
feel more natural. I thank my buddy Smitty from Diesel Strength for introducing
me to that concept. Pressing with a thumbs around the bar grip now feels
awkward and pretty much terrible after doing it the other way.
With dumbbells, try pressing with a neutral grip and palms facing you for variety.

On overhead presses we work up to 1-3 heavy, top end sets in the 5-8 range if
you’re a newbie or as high as 10-12 for strong, advanced guys.

As always, heavy lifting is a better choice than light high rep training
when it comes to building muscle.

And lower rep sets target the Type IIB fibers, which grow faster than the slow
twitch fibers.

Handstand Pushups
No discussion about how to build big shoulders would be complete without
mentioning the handstand pushup. This is as difficult as it sounds but can be
modified for novice or intermediate lifters.

The easiest way to work up to a handstand pushup is to start by simply holding

the position for time while you keep your feet up against the wall.

When you can easily hold your bodyweight for sixty seconds start working
eccentric only reps. Do five singles and take five seconds to lower yourself. Work
up to doing five sets of three, lowering in 6-8 seconds. After doing that for a few
weeks you will be able to get your first rep on your own.

Once that’s possible you should do one or two sets of one rep and a couple more
eccentric only reps. When you get to the point where you can do three reps try
doing ten singles with about 45-60 seconds between them.

When can do six reps you’d want to do sets of three. So about half of what you
are capable of doing in one set.

Progression on these will take time so be patient and keep practicing.

Once you can do 8-10 reps usually (in about 4-6 months) it will be time to start
increasing the range of motion. To do this place your hands on boxes and lower
your head between them.

Ideally you would want to start with thin rubber mats and add one every couple of
weeks. If you don’t have that ability, stack some magazines or something in
between the boxes to increase the range gradually.

Once you can do a set of 6-8 reps with your head all the way down between the
boxes you should have some pretty massive shoulder development, not to
mention some overall full body strength and athleticism.

Lateral Raise
These are normally done standing but if you have trouble targeting your side
delts with standard lateral raises try doing them on an incline bench set between
45 and 75 degrees. A slight forward lean puts you in a position to hit the side
delts more effectively.

When training the lateral raise you want to be sure you maintain constant tension
and continuous movement throughout the set.

Low Incline Lateral Raise

By lowering the bench to an angle of 15-35 degrees you will put more stress on
the rear delts. These muscles tend to be more slow twitch and respond best to
slightly higher reps.

Face Pull
This is a great exercise for building up all of the muscles across your upper back
and the back of your shoulders. Attach a rope handle to a cable stack at about
face height. Now row the handles towards your face with your elbows up high
and flared out to the side. Squeeze your shoulder blades together for a second at
the top.
I recommend sets of 8-15 reps on the face pull.

These can be also be done with a hammer grip, which also involves the external
rotator muscles to a greater extent. Use both variations for balanced
development.

The Ultimate Shoulder Workout

The majority of Renegade training programs have you training three days per
week and I generally recommend training a muscle group every 5-7 days. When
you’re a beginner you can use more frequency than this for you first year.

I use a few different training splits such as:

Upper/Lower/Upper
Rotating Upper/Lower where you train upper twice one week, then lower
twice the next week
Chest+Shoulders+Tris+Abs/ Back+Legs+Bis
Push/Pull/Lower
Chest+Tris/Back+Bis/Legs+Shoulders
 Vertical pushing & pulling/Quad dominant/ Horizontal pushing & pulling/ Hip
dominant (training 3 days per week and rotating the 4th day over to the
following week)

One thing I don’t do, however, is prescribe a typical pro bodybuilder style workout
where one particular muscle group gets blasted with 12-20 sets of 12-15 reps.
That only works for genetic freaks who are on steroids.

The natural lifter with average genetics needs far less volume. And their main
focus needs to be on getting strong.

Depending on the split above that you choose the program might be slightly
different. But the general theme is that you press heavy weights overhead once
every 5-7 days for low reps. Then you hit some volume work on lateral raises and
face pulls.

Sample Shoulder Workout:

Day 1

Standing DB Press- 3 x 8, 6, 10 x 120

Lateral Raise- 4 x 10-12 x 30

This would be done on an upper body day, a push day or a vertical push day if
you follow a movement pattern split

Day 2

Rack deadlift or high pull (to work the traps) – 3 x 5-8 x 120

Face Pull- 4 x 10-12 x 30

What About Nutrition?

No muscle group will grow without proper fuel. So be sure to eat one gram of
protein per pound of bodyweight per day and 1.5-3 grams of carbs. Keep fats low
to moderate at around .4 grams per pound of bodyweight.

You can read more HERE.

***

Now you know how to build big shoulders. Don’t get caught up on doing more
work. Just focus on the basics and keep getting strong. That’s the only proven
plan that works.

Keep me posted on your results by hitting me up on Twitter or Instagram.