Q. Last week’s arm workout was a big help. Can you give some good exercises for the shoulders?
A. Honestly, to get great-looking arms you need to work your shoulders, too. The muscles you see on the outside of your shoulder are the deltoid muscles. There are three parts to that group of muscles: Anterior part of the deltoid (front of the shoulder muscle), medial part of the deltoid (middle part of the shoulder muscle) posterior part of the deltoid (back part of the shoulder muscle).
I am going to give you all kinds of different shoulder exercises from which to choose. Pick about three shoulder exercises per workout. Try to pick them for different parts of the shoulder (front, side, back) Make sure you have a full day of rest in between before you do shoulders again.
Let’s stay with low reps and more sets (like last week): three to four sets of 8-10 reps with a weight for which you can only do that amount of reps. People with shoulder issues should not do any presses overhead.
Your rule of thumb is to stay below your shoulder level with your exercises. (Below, OH means over head, BS means below shoulder.)
Most beneficial to your workouts is to work a muscle at least twice in a week. That can be done in two or three full body workouts or split workouts. When I was in body building, I liked to split them like this: chest with triceps, back with biceps, legs, shoulders and abs.
All right, let’s get to the shoulder exercises:
n Barbell shoulder press (OH)
n D-bell shoulder press (OH)
n Military press (OH)
n Barbell upright rowing (BS)
n D-bell front lateral raises (BS)
n D-bell side lateral raises (BS)
n D-bell bent over flies (BS and for back of shoulder)
n Cable front lateral raises (BS)
n Cable side lateral raises (BS)
n Cable Bent over flies (BS and for back of shoulder)
Ask a trainer if you don’t know how to do these exercises or want to make sure you are doling them right. I hope this will help you.
Next week, I’ll be covering exercises for rotator cuff muscles.
Contact Ester Hoeben with health and fitness questions at 704-636-0111 or ehoeben@ rowanymca.com.