Shoulders

Front Delt Training Tips

1. Compound Pushing movements for chest work will take care of almost all front delt stimulation. This means that for folks training chest regularly, MRV for specific front delt work is as low as 6-10 working sets per week.

2. Almost all lifters will get more than enough front delt work from compound pushing alone and won't have to do any specific work most times. From a bodybuilding perspective, front delts that are too small for the physique are incredibly rare, and it's the rear and side delts that need the work.

3. Because front delts get hit so much during chest training, most specific front delt work (if you're even doing it) should usually be done after chest work, in that same session or later in the day. Spreading your front delt work out too much over the week can leave your front delts too fatigued for your chest work and interfere with that chest work.

4. Best exercises for front delts are all the pushing moves, and among them strict overhead pressing is king. Barbells are key, but seated, standing, smith, dumbbell, and machine work is all good for variation. You can use front raises sparingly, and when you do, I recommend a supinated (palms up) grip with a full ROM and low weight, focusing on sets of 10-15 and on slow eccentrics. Remember, heavy presses already took care of the heavy work, so the lighter stuff is reserved for isolation.

Side Delt Training Tips

1. Exercise Selection

   The best exercises for side delts are usually a variation on upright rows and/or lateral raises. Barbell, dumbbell, smith machine, and cable upright rows, and dumbbell lateral raises. Cable and machine laterals can be ok, but in my experience are usually inferior to the aforementioned exercises. In the end you have to do what you feel hits them most, but be honest. Don't just do moves you like or are good at... do what hits the muscle.

2. Exercise Technique

   As with most muscles but ESPECIALLY side delts, making sure to use strict technique allows you to get the actual target muscle to do the work, reduces injury risk, and lets you know if you're actually getting stronger vs. using crappier technique to get the reps. Use the biggest ROM you can use without pain, which for most means lateral raises and upright rows find the upper arm at or above parallel to the ground at the top, and for many, another 10-15 degrees higher than that. Oh and if you're swinging much, you're doing the exercises wrong.

3. Rep Ranges

   For upright rows, as few as 6-8 reps can be done on occasions. But for most times, and pretty much all times for lateral raises, reps of 8-20 keep the exercises safe on he shoulders and provide the volume and metabolites needed for growth.

4. MRV

   For most lifters, side delt maximal recoverable volumes are some of the highest of all muscle groups. The small, fatigue resistant and quickly recovering side delts can handle around 25 working sets per week, with almost everyone capable of 20 a week and many able to handle 30 or more.

5. Frequencies

   Side delts recover fast for most lifters. Training them 2x a week is the bare minimum for anything resembling best results, and for most lifters, 3-4 times a week should be even better. One or two of those sessions can be easier than the others to promote recovery-adaptation.

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Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press Tips

1. Use high reps and low weights

   Save the big weights for seated and standing barbell presses. Dumbbell pressing is inherently unstable and thus not the best exercise with which to generate high forces. Instead of high forces, aim for reps of 10-20 and lots of sets to put in high total volumes.

2. Go through a full ROM

   If you're gonna use dumbbells, take the big advantage they can give you and use the potential for enhanced range of motion to its fullest. I like to touch outside of my lateral delts for each rep.

3. Use down sets

   Shoulder presses fatigue easily, so feel free to do some down sets with lighter weight once your working sets with heavier weight drop off.

Lateral Raise Tips

1. The use of weights too heavy for proper technique is a huge problem for many people doing lateral raises. The cool thing is, there ARE exercises for these muscles in which bigger weights can be used (upright rows, shoulder presses, barbell face pulls), but lateral raises are not one of them. I can strict upright row 135 for sets of 10, can overhead press 245 for sets of 10, but only use around 40lbs for laterals, just to give some perspective. Anything much under 8 reps per set is probably too heavy a job for laterals.

2. Going higher usually activates the delts more. So long as it doesn't bother you, go above parallel each time.

3. Arm bend can be anything you want, but the more you bend them, the more weight you have to use and the more your grip becomes a limiting factor. I prefer elbows just slightly bent to keep that joint safe but keep the weights low.

4. Milking out the eccentric can be a great way to get more out of this exercise. Don't just let the dumbbells drop down each rep.

5. It's ok to swing a little to keep your balance and accommodate for the change in center of mass through the motion. But that's different than swinging to get the weight up. You KNOW the difference when you're doing it, so don't BS yourself!

Tips for Rear Delt Development

1. Heavy compound rowing and vertical pulling moves are the biggest factor to rear delt development. It's from these that you're getting most of your rear delt stimulation and because you do them as part of your back training anyway, you're almost all the way to full rear delt development just by training your back! This means that you won't ever have to do a TON of specific work for rear delts.

2. When training your medial delts (future post to come), there is a considerable amount of rear delt involvement. This coupled with back training greatly lowers your rear delt MRV. However, your MRV for rear delts will still be between 12-18 sets per week on average even with these factors taken into account. Why still so high? Because for most lifters, the rear delts recover incredibly quickly and can handle a ton of work.

3. Because they recover quickly, rear delts can be isolated 3-6 times per week, and I'd venture to say that for this muscle, even 2x a week might be missing out just a bit of growth gained by going up to at least 3 sessions. If rear delt development is a big goal for you, this means that you might train rear delts during most if not all of your training sessions for the week. And what about having a "rear delt day" in your split? Leave that to the bros.

4. Going along with point 1, we can see that back training has largely taken care of stimulating the big, fast twitch fibers of the rear delts. This is the beginning of the argument that when you isolate the rear delts, you should use lighter weights (10-30 reps) and more metabolite techniques (supersets, drop sets, etc.) because the heavy conventional training is already taken care of with back. The other part of the argument for training rear delts lighter is technique-based. ONLY with lighter weights can you execute the NEAR-PERFECT techniques needed to actually isolate the rear delts. As soon as you start moving heavier weight, there is a huge temptation to use other muscles and that basically turns into more back or medial delt/trap training really quick. When you train rear delts, focus on technique FIRST and the feel/burn/pump second.

Dumbbell Upright Row

This is one of my favorite medial and rear delt exercises, the dumbbell upright row. A couple technique rules I use:

1. I go as high up as I can without pain. If you can go higher, do it, but if not, just keep your ROM to whatever is pain free.

2. Always lead with the elbows up.

3. Hold at the top for a split second.

4. I like to pull up and back to make sure medial and rear delts are hit, not front delts.

5. Always go down under control and all the way.

6. Anything heavier than your 10RM on these will just be an unstable attempt at max effort and yield little results. Sets of about 15 reps work best for me on this exercise.

7. Pull the dumbbells slightly out to the sides as you go up instead of keeping them closer together in front of your body. This makes it more of a delt and less of a biceps exercise.

Dumbbell Face Pulls

1. Best done on a bench to really limit momentum, but can be done bent over without one.

2. Great for rear/side delts, especially when lighter weights are used and peak contraction is emphasized.

3. Not very fatiguing, so can be done for lots of sets or in addition to other rear/side salt moves.

Hybrid upright row/face pull with cable

Great for rear/lateral delts. I find this movement and many like it nearly useless if going heavy, so I use high reps (20 or so on first set), pause at the top, and control on the way down. Make sure to give your big compound moves (squats, benches, deads, rows, presses, etc.) big forces and bar velocities on the concentric for max development, but at the same time be a little more reserved, focused, and 'mentally connected' with your target muscles on the smaller more isolation moves. Don't make the mistake of 'using muscles not weight' for the deadlift while heaving the stack for cable work.