Shoulder Exercises | Best Deltoid Exercises

Shoulder Exercises

Weight Training Advice

If you weight train having strong shoulder, or deltoid, muscles is extremely important because they are involved in some way on just about any upper body weight training exercise. Since they do assist on so many exercises you also must avoid doing too many direct shoulder exercises and overtraining them.

The front heads of the shoulder muscles tend to do the most on exercises for other muscle groups. Because of this, you may not need to do any direct shoulder exercises for them. If you feel you need to develop the front shoulder heads more you should do some sets of front lateral raises.

The rear deltoid heads do get some work from assisting on upper back exercises, but aren't as likely to get as overdeveloped or overtraining as the front delt heads. The best shoulder exercises for the rear deltoid heads are rear lateral raises done with dumbbells, cables, or machines. When you do them keep your elbows slightly bent and try to focus the resistence on the rear shoulder heads instead of the upper back muscles.

The side heads of the shoulder muscles don't assist as much as the front and rear heads on exercises for other muscles. You should do more direct shoulder exercises for your side deltoids than for the other heads because of this. Do some sets of side lateral raises - making sure to once again keep your elbows slightly bent as you raise the weights out to your sides until your arms are parelle to the floor. Side lateral raises can be done with dumbbells, cables, or machines. Since building the side delts is very important to gaining width in the shoulders you'll want to do a few different exercises for them.

The best shoulder exercises for overall deltoid development are military presses and dumbbell presses. You can do either exercise while standing or seated. If you do them seated you'll be forced to use the shoulders more to get the weight up. If you do them standing you can cheat a bit to lift the weight. A little cheating at the end of a set should be okay as long as you don't overdo it. When you do military presses make sure to lower the weight to the front of your neck. Behind the neck presses put the shoulders in a bad position and shouldn't be a part of your deltoid exercise routine.

There are also some overhead press machines you'll find at the gym you can train the shoulders on. However, you're much better off using free weights on overhead press shoulder exercises because the machines will force you to lift in a fixed plane and may put your delts in a weird lifting position.

Many weight trainers train their trapezius muscles as part of their shoulder routine. Shrugs with a barbell or dumbbells are the best exercise to build the traps. You should be able to use a lot of weight while shrugging so you may want to enhance your grip with chalk or lifting straps. When you shrug you should try to hold the weight at the top position for a few seconds to build more muscle. Upright rows are another popular exercise for building the traps, but are also another exercise that puts the shoulders in a position that makes an injury more likely.

To help avoid a rotator cuff injury you can do an exercise to strengthen it. Take a very light dumbbell in one hand and hold your upper arm parallel to the floor with the forearm held out in front like an L, then use the forearm to raise the dumbbell while keeping the upper arm in the same position.