i press and press and press… raise and raise and still no, my shoulders hardly put on size anymore … WTF is going on, i never get sore in my shoulders even when i devote a whole workout to doing shoulders. is it my technique or what? what is the proper technique for shoulder work (mainly pressing) anyway?
try doing shoulders with chest.
e.g. super set dumbbell bench with seated overheads
bent over reverse flies (rear delts are neglected at times)
hammer strength shoulder press. the only machines i trust.
and one more thing ROM
[quote]ZeusNathan wrote:
and one more thing ROM[/quote]
for ROM im always full range, i usually have my arms just outside shoulder width, is that just too close?
Do you devote a day to just shoulders?
How heavy are you pressing?
What’s your exercise selection / typical routine?
How are your other body parts responding to their training?
Try rest pause-ing them, tri-sets, more volume less intensity, less volume more intensity … cause whatever you’re doing now isn’t working.
well there was one week where i was “fuck my shoulders im gunna thrash them” and trained shoulders alone twice a week and deadlifted on a third day and they wernt sore or anything. typical routine is as follows:
military press or behind neck press 4 x 6-10
maybe arnold press or regular db 3 x 8-10
and one day i did a tri-set of front/side (inclined)/ and rear raises for 3 x 8-12 and NOTHING… also, everythings else is growing normally
I had awesome gains with CT’s superhero program (week 1 - 4). If you want to focus on shoulders give it a try.
Best regards, stefan
[quote]stefan2k wrote:
I had awesome gains with CT’s superhero program (week 1 - 4). If you want to focus on shoulders give it a try.
Best regards, stefan[/quote]
thank you sir ill look into it
This is not rocket science or anything innovative but I have found pre-exhaust VERY effective in bringing up my hamstrings and chest. I think you should give it a try.
You can also try to incorporate a machine or cable exercise for lateral raises as they keep the tension on the delts for the much of the entire duration of the exercise, unlike dumbbell exercises.
The delts are not a muscle group that gets excessively sore as do the hamstrings, pecs, and lats as stated by Eric Cressey on here several times. Horizontal pulling (rhomboids, middle traps, teres, some of the lats) and overheard pressing muscles (delts, tris)do not become sore much but the horizontal pressing (pecs) and vertical pulling (lats, lower traps) muscles do become very sore. The hams have little blood supply too and are mostly fast twich, so they get very sore.
For me, push presses and upright rows have helped. Do the upright rows with a rope handle & low pulley, it’s easier on your joints than a bar.
[quote]ZeusNathan wrote:
try doing shoulders with chest.
e.g. super set dumbbell bench with seated overheads
bent over reverse flies (rear delts are neglected at times)
hammer strength shoulder press. the only machines i trust.
and one more thing ROM[/quote]
Sorry to hijack, but is that you in that avatar dude? Holy shit, it’s a fucking tank.
I find doing strip sets using standing dumbell presses pretty effective because you can simply run the rack… try doing 4 sets of strip sets… might seem pretty extreme; but i commonly do them though i do not know if every one can handle them; but for me, there is something about only 5 to 8 reps that is not enough for my shoulders when doing presses; however, i also dont want to go light; so i start off heavy; but go lighter and get more reps in using strip sets…
[quote]Artem wrote:
ZeusNathan wrote:
try doing shoulders with chest.
e.g. super set dumbbell bench with seated overheads
bent over reverse flies (rear delts are neglected at times)
hammer strength shoulder press. the only machines i trust.
and one more thing ROM
Sorry to hijack, but is that you in that avatar dude? Holy shit, it’s a fucking tank.[/quote]
that isn’t him lol
Have you tried going heavier? I like doing push press with 8x3 or 5x5. I’m giving that three-stage press a shot currently, the one Thib mentioned in “Violent Variations”. I was really feeling it in my shoulders last week, it was cool. I think I might’ve even been a bit sore.
Shorter breaks between exercises? Aim for 12 reps on each set?
[quote]diamonddelts59 wrote:
i press and press and press… raise and raise and still no, my shoulders hardly put on size anymore … WTF is going on, i never get sore in my shoulders even when i devote a whole workout to doing shoulders. is it my technique or what? what is the proper technique for shoulder work (mainly pressing) anyway?[/quote]
My delts never get doms either, its the nature of the muscle i think… they can take a shitload.
I got the best gains from doing at least 2 press exercises (Smith seated, free seated, db seated, push, clean and press) per workout for delts, then 1-2 exercises for side(Dbs sometimes cable) and rear delts. (One DB one Machine)
For a total of 8-15 sets usually.
Just to state the obvious though, if you do high volume, try low and vice-versa… High reps, try low… pre-exhaust side delts, pre exhaust rear… pre and post fatigue technique…isometrics… rest/pause… 2 delt sessions a day… full body and specialization for delts… thats enough!
Joe
personally it seams like the volume is a little low. Even though the delts arn’t the biggest muscles, i hit everything with higherish amounts of sets, on the brink of OTing. Maybe kicking up the volume for a week or two with some supersets to help intensity might help. Somthing like,
-DB press: 4x6-12
-Arnolds superset w/ DB medial raise: 4x8-12
-Front raises superset w/ Bentover post-delt flye: 4:8-12
plus traps if you like,
like it…
Add the push press in there as your first movement.
Alternating sets of standing military press with lateral raises has been giving me some good results recently. One-arm dumbell presses are a good exercise too. I feel the shoulder working more with those than with any other exercise.
How much weight are you handling on the military press?
I never gained in the shoulders until I started going heavy and to failure. If you are doing countless reps with a low weight (say less than 115 pounds)
My advice is always to try something opposite of what was not giving results. In your case, you might want to try to do 1 hard set of military press to failure in the 6 rep range followed by 2-3 rest pause reps. Follow that with side laterals stage reps i.e. work the top 1/2 part of the movement to failure then the bottom part to failure in the 8 rep range. That’s it.
I seriously doubt doing more volume would help here as your volume level is pretty high already.