Complete
your physique with a mighty pair of cannonball delts.
-CANNONBALL DELTS
There is no
denying it, great shoulders complete a physique. They give you width and top
off that coveted V-taper. Your waist can be as small as can be, but without a
killer pair of delts it will just not look right. Sadly, great or even good
shoulders are rare these days and it is not due to lack of effort. If
one takes
a look around in most gyms, they’ll find that most shoulders are slopped
forward and/or injured. Rarely do your see a nice pair of cannonball delts so I
made it my mission to change that sorry state of affairs.
In my
opinion, the main reason that most trainees do not develop the shoulders they
should have is because they are not fully balanced and therefore prone to
injury as well as poor progress.
Here are 10
tricks to make your shoulders big and healthy at the same time.
-KEEP THEM HEALTHY
This sounds
obvious but is often neglected. If your shoulders are inflamed or injured,
training will be very difficult since there is hardly an exercise where the
shoulders are not involved. Even barbell squats become difficult as it's hard
to hold bar with a set of inflamed delts.
The main
reason for shoulder injuries is a structural imbalance; meaning that most
trainees are overdeveloped in the front part of the shoulder and too weak in
the rear. This gives them a weird hunchback look and inflames the biceps
tendon. The test for balanced shoulders are wall slides.
Stand with
your back against the wall, bring your arms to shoulder height, while bending
the elbows about 90 degrees. Now simply move your arms up and down along the
body. You should feel the shoulder blades moving downward. If you cannot
perform wall slides properly, because your arms are coming forward, you are too
stiff which brings us to point #2.
-KEEP IT FLEXIBLE
Working on
your flexibility in regards to chest and front delts is your first line of
defense against a shoulder impingement. The easiest way to increase your ROM is
the towel stretch. For this, you grab a towel with both hands and try to bring
it over your head behind your body, while keeping the arms extended. At first,
you might be struggling with this exercise, but over time you should be able to
bring your hands closer together. Do 3x20 every night.
-TRAIN THE CUFF
Working on
your flexibility in regards to chest and front delts is your first line of
defense against a shoulder impingement. The easiest way to increase your ROM is
the towel stretch. For this, you grab a towel with both hands and try to bring
it over your head behind your body, while keeping the arms extended. At first,
you might be struggling with this exercise, but over time you should be able to
bring your hands closer together. Do 3x20 every night.
-DON’T DO FRONT RAISES
This will
most likely tick off a few people but in my humble opinion there is no need to
add any more direct work for the anterior deltoid as it gets plenty of
stimulation via every press and pull you do.
-START FROM THE BACK
This goes
in line with point #1, but since the rear delt is woefully underdeveloped by
many trainees, I cannot overemphasize this point. Always start your shoulder
workout with rear delt exercises, such as rear delt flyes, uncrossovers or
j-pulls. Setting up your workout in such a manner will create symmetry and keep
you healthy. Some of the greatest physiques in the sport got their exclamation
mark by having rear delts that capped off their shoulders and gave them a 3-D
look.
-LEARN THE CLEAN AND PRESS
If you have
somebody qualified to teach you, the clean and press is a great tool to
stimulate the nervous system. Doing a couple sets at the start of your shoulder
workout will greatly improve the effectiveness of the actual hypertrophy work.
There is no need to go heavy, think 4 sets of 8 at 60% of the weight you would
be using for overhead presses.
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Source: http://www.muscleandfitness.com
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