Muscular-Fitness

In terms of the best exercises for shoulder development you really can’t go past the shoulder press. The shoulder press is about all that stands in your way to getting big round deltoids. There are a number of other great movements for growing the delts but none are as effective in building mass as the shoulder press. One of the main reasons why the shoulder press is so effective for big deltoids is because it can be performed in a number of different ways to target the shoulder muscles from numerous angles. It is from constantly hitting your shoulders at slightly alternate angles by using different exercises that cause your body to grow workout after workout and not get stuck on a plateau of no growth.

My personal favorite shoulder press exercise is the smith machine shoulder press, pressing the bar in front of the face. With the smith machine you can still push hard with heavy weights but have the safety of multiple stopping points on the smith machine rack just in case you fail at any point. Pressing in front with the bar almost scraping your nose on the way down and up again isolates the side deltoid with just a small amount of assistance from the front delts but has the added advantage of minimizing damage to the rotor cuff which sits underneath the front, side and rear deltoids on a diagonal angle.

A very common and equally great mass building shoulder press movement is the behind the head shoulder press with a barbell. This is called a military press. This has been a favorite exercise with weight trainers, bodybuilders and other athletes to quickly build shoulder mass for many years but if you are pushing heavy weight with this exercise and not using correct form it is very easy to aggrevate or even tear the rotor cuff muscles underneath the deltoids. If a rotor cuff injury occurs you could be out of action for weeks or even months.

Another super effective shoulder exercise is the dumbbell shoulder press. This is ideally performed on a bench with the incline back rest at just below the ninety degree point or just slightly leaning back from upright. Holding two equally weighted dumbbells with your palms facing forward, lower the dumbbells to about your ear level and then press upward to the point just before your elbows lock out. Locking out the elbows is unnecessary as it puts too much strain on the elbow joint and keeps the resistance of the weights on your delts where it belongs.

You can also perform shoulder press exercises with a number of different style shoulder press machines available in most gyms. It is also possible to perform the shoulder press movement with cables by bringing a free standing bench alongside the cable and pulley system.

There are several excellent shoulder exercises to target the deltoids but the ideal compound movement for muscle and strength gain for the deltoids will always be some version of the shoulder press. So for the most effective and fastest gains possible, always make the shoulder press priority number one when blasting the delts and keep mixing your workouts up each week to blast through any sticking points.