I’ve come up with a problem. My anterior deltoids are way overdeveloped, while my medial and posterior deltoids are almost non-existent. Have shoulder compound exercises failed me?
I’ve been doing barbell shoulder presses and Arnold presses, rotating every month.
What do I need to do? Do I need to use isolation exercises to really target the rest of my shoulder musculature?
Use bent-over rows, deadlifts, snatches and power cleans. You’ll be good to go.
I can understand BB Bent-over rows, but how would the others help?
They all help work the rear delts and surrounding area. Trust me, they will give you the balanced look you need. And back off the anterior delt work. You’re getting plenty if you’re still benching.
Thanks 
[quote]Judecca wrote:
What do I need to do? Do I need to use isolation exercises to really target the rest of my shoulder musculature?[/quote]
Yes, you do and I don’t understand why anyone would tell you otherwise. If you want to bring out your lateral delts, you do lateral raises. Bent over raises will effectively work your posterior delts. Why are you avoiding all isolation exercises? Compound exercises are great for building a base of mass. Beyond that, you need to do some kind of isolation work for certain muscle groups. Otherwise, your physique will be off balance.
I’ve definetly found this as well. I just realized that my shoulders pretty much suck compared to the rest of my upper body primarily because I never worked them directly.
For a long time, I was under the impression that they should not be worked directly because they get worked in compounds; I WAS WRONG! Anyways, I’m specifically trying to make up for lost time in my rear and medial delts. Definetly add in some isolation
-Matt
I was going to ask the same question.
For shoulders day I do DB press, clean and jerk, standing military press, shrugs and bent-over lateral raises. I was wondering too if I should do more iso. I used to do all those iso movements a year ago then I thought that iso would not develop my shoulders like those big movements I am doing right now. What’s everyone point of view of that? Should iso wait until you get massive shoulders?
Hope I am not hijacking the thread here!
For Compound Exercises Try:
-Cable Rope Pulls To The Neck
-Dumbell Up Right Rows
-Barbell Up Right Rows
-High Pulls
-Larry Scott Dumbell Shoulder Presses," look at his web site"
-British Laterals
-45 Degree Barbell Rows to upper Chest,“Watch the low back”
For Isolation Exercises: try all the usual dumbell and cable exercizes but before you will be able to get allot of size from them you should be able to at least do a Strict Barbell Military Press through a full range of motion with at least body weight.
[quote]TheFrenchMenace wrote:
I was going to ask the same question.
For shoulders day I do DB press, clean and jerk, standing military press, shrugs and bent-over lateral raises. I was wondering too if I should do more iso. I used to do all those iso movements a year ago then I thought that iso would not develop my shoulders like those big movements I am doing right now. What’s everyone point of view of that? Should iso wait until you get massive shoulders?
Hope I am not hijacking the thread here! [/quote]
I think many of you make this more complicated than necessary. I think doing compound movements is great for building a base of strength. It keeps you from being one of the guys that I see at my gym who does bench presses with only one 10lb plate on each side and finishes as if he really accomplished something. That would be great if since nearly a year ago he hadn’t only increased that weight by adding the 10lb plate on each side.
You build massive shoulders by not neglecting certain aspects of them. While compound movements may help with that base of strength, there is no way I would have ever thought that I should avoid lateral raises or bent over raises because of it. Your shoulders have three heads and each needs to be worked in order for overall growth to occur.
[quote]Judecca wrote:
I’ve come up with a problem. My anterior deltoids are way overdeveloped, while my medial and posterior deltoids are almost non-existent. Have shoulder compound exercises failed me?
I’ve been doing barbell shoulder presses and Arnold presses, rotating every month.
What do I need to do? Do I need to use isolation exercises to really target the rest of my shoulder musculature?[/quote]
Do you do your bb shoulder presses behind you head or in front?
I do mine from behind with a nice wide bench grip. I find I can handle a lot more weight this way, and get more compliments on my shoulders than anything else. I don’t bother with isolation delt work at all either.
Rows to the neck followed by bent over rear lateral raises, will hammer your posteriors.
You’ll feel them. They are also humbling. I find I can pull a descent amount of weight to my nexk but once I bend over, I feel like a sissy with those ‘smaller’ weights. I can really feel them hurtin after that.
I prioritized my shoulders during my TBT session whereas I always chose to do a shoulder exercise and it has made all the difference in how I look without shirt. Point being, they can take alot of volume. At least mine can.
If you want to prioritize the shoulders I’m pretty sure CT did a prioritization program to squeeze into your rotation. CT happens to have bowling balls attached to each one of his arms.
Good luck ninja,
T
Many coaches advocate the use of only presses and back work for “complete” shoulder development. Many trainees find this to be woefully lacking in results. Isolation exercises are a necessity if you want the delts to look good. You hear the same rationale for not training arms directly. Another mistake. Now it makes sense for the majority of people to focus on the compounds instead of treating the body like a disjointed cluster of individual bodyparts, but you can over correct. As the saying goes “a good observation but a bad conclusion”. As long as you are focusing your work on the compounds, and really I like a single compound motion per muscle group, then you can and should direct some of this training stimulus to isolation execises.
For example on TBT, as an example since it’s so popular, I’d do the compound motion on the 5x5 day, then upright rows for the 3x8 day for the lateral and posterior delts, and finally some westside combos for your 2x18 day. The westside combo is taking a 10lb plate (or light db)and doing the following:
This constitutes a “set”. You’d do two of these series for a second “set”.
CAVEAT** For your situation I’d ditch the front raises and do a lateral/posterior combo instead.
Also if you do cable low rows, let your elbows flare out slightly to about a 45 degree angle from your torso. This will greatly increase the focus on the rear deltoids as you work the back. Most keep the arms squeezed into the body, but this removes the rear delts to a significant degree.
Finally, when you bench, do it Powerlifting style. Squeeze your shoulder blades tightly together and down allowing you keep the shoulder joint “open”, and don’t push to a full extension. Just go about 95%. Don’t let your arms flare out to 90 degrees from your torso like a “bodybuilder’s bench”, but rather keep your elbows about 45 degrees from your torso like PL’s do. This keeps the front delts from being overstimulated on the bench and spreads the stress across the pecs and triceps more.
Check out JP Catanzarro’s article “Lateral Thinking” in the Authors section. Great isolation moves and explanations.
Best,
DH
Oh and for your warmups… do laterals and posterior raises before the 5x5 compound day, and before the URR day. By getting a “feel” in the individual groups, you can usually focus the stress of a compound motion more on these areas. Sort of a pre-exhuastion technique, but don’t go to failure on these, either.
Disc Hoss,
Thanks for the tips for elbow and arm placement for the cables. I had no idea that you could target the posteriors this way, I would love to hit these as I feel my anteriors are fine. The double bi-pose shows that. I don’t think there is a great impbalance, but then again I will notice posterally when I stand sideways, that there could be some tightness going on here.
I will impliment the arm placement as directed.
As a side note, I have been benching PL style and have noticed a removal of pain from my one shoulder. I make it a point of making sure my shoulders and back and down and my legs are involved too. I have also noticed gains in the tri-ceps as a result, oh yeah and I can push alot more weight for a long armed guy.
One question though again, the 45 degrees, your talking about the angle of arm towards the legs? in other words 45 degrees out from my arm pits, as opposed to straight 90 degrees as written?
Thanks for your help! Sorry to hijack Judecco.
Cheers,
T
[quote]TOTrev wrote:
Disc Hoss,
Thanks for the tips for elbow and arm placement for the cables. I had no idea that you could target the posteriors this way, I would love to hit these as I feel my anteriors are fine. The double bi-pose shows that. I don’t think there is a great impbalance, but then again I will notice posterally when I stand sideways, that there could be some tightness going on here.
I will impliment the arm placement as directed.
As a side note, I have been benching PL style and have noticed a removal of pain from my one shoulder. I make it a point of making sure my shoulders and back and down and my legs are involved too. I have also noticed gains in the tri-ceps as a result, oh yeah and I can push alot more weight for a long armed guy.
One question though again, the 45 degrees, your talking about the angle of arm towards the legs? in other words 45 degrees out from my arm pits, as opposed to straight 90 degrees as written?
Thanks for your help! Sorry to hijack Judecco.
Cheers,
T[/quote]
Let’s try that again. 
Think of flapping your arms like a chicken. At the midpoint your upper arms form a 45 degree angle with your torso. For a visual, think how you would look with a tennis ball stuck in each armpit. This applies to both low cable rows and PL benching. Also keep your elbows directly under your wrists when benching and bring the bar to just below the nipples to spread the stimulus to the pecs/tris/delts evenly.
Be sure to not that I removed the anterior raises from the Westside combo set on the high rep day of TBT. Just focus on the medial and posterior heads.
Also do a set or two of reverse flyes before doing the rows with arms at 45 degrees mentioned above. This small amount of work will allow you to focus on the rear delts more effectively on the rows. Don’t make this a light weight rear delt motion either, but a modified low pulley row that works the whole middle back with some added emphasis on the “bananas” in the back.
Best,
DH
[quote]Judecca wrote:
I’ve come up with a problem. My anterior deltoids are way overdeveloped, while my medial and posterior deltoids are almost non-existent. Have shoulder compound exercises failed me?
I’ve been doing barbell shoulder presses and Arnold presses, rotating every month.
What do I need to do? Do I need to use isolation exercises to really target the rest of my shoulder musculature?[/quote]
I suffered the same problem recently. A solution that worked for mewas to forgo compound movements for a while and use dumbells to bring up rear delts and upper traps, as well as some work on rotator cuffs.
One great movement I like is to lie chest down on a incline and do rear dumbell flies to really hit the posterior delts and upper traps/lats.