Shoulders Like a Bull

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
MytchBucanan wrote:
Don’t forget heavy upright rows. Especially with wrist straps, you can go heavy.

I’m not a huge fan of or totally anti upright rows like some folks, but I gotta say that doing em heavy enough to require straps sounds like a guaranteed shoulder problem sooner or later for a lot of people.[/quote]

Upright rows are why babies cry at night.

Just thought I’d chime in to say that I love big shoulders on a guy.

Also, I was thinking what Prof X already said that it’s hard to add size to just your shoulders and to be sure to focus on gaining all over, too, especially if you’re not that big to begin with.

you’ve got the pressing all squared away but attack the laterals and rear laterals with a vengeance. also what has helped me sticking to good form. the more u swing and use other body parts the more motor units recruited from other body parts, also the level and angle you raise on your laterals drastically effects trap and upper back involvement.

for my laterals i like to really squeeze and keep my arms straight and elbows and pinkies pointed upwards a little. for rear laterals and all variations i found the key to really isolate the rear delt’s is to bring the bells back about 30 degrees away from shoulder level to really squeeze the rear delts and take out the upper back and traps.

but experiment with your own form to see how your delts get stressed. I also like to do giant sets and higher reps to squeeze the muscle and fill it with blood

Thanks a lot guys, i received some good advice on this post.Especially thanks to prof x and IQ, i will definitely keep in mind what you guys said. I’m gonna buy more weights to make sure i keep it heavy. I will let you know how it went.
thanks

[quote]lil_diesel90 wrote:
Your shoulders are almost the dead last place on your body to recieve fat of any kind. So naturally it is harder to make them broader and more bulky in general if you have no fat on them to build with.
[/quote]

When did storing fat in various bodyparts in order to make them “bulky” become a part of building muscle? I always thought the whole point was the gain muscle…and if fat came a long with it to an extent, that was fine…I never knew that I just needed shoulder fat to have big imposing shoulders!

[quote]fightingtiger wrote:
lil_diesel90 wrote:
Your shoulders are almost the dead last place on your body to recieve fat of any kind. So naturally it is harder to make them broader and more bulky in general if you have no fat on them to build with.

When did storing fat in various bodyparts in order to make them “bulky” become a part of building muscle? I always thought the whole point was the gain muscle…and if fat came a long with it to an extent, that was fine…I never knew that I just needed shoulder fat to have big imposing shoulders![/quote]

LOL.

[quote]lil_diesel90 wrote:
Your shoulders are almost the dead last place on your body to recieve fat of any kind. So naturally it is harder to make them broader and more bulky in general if you have no fat on them to build with.

Thats probably why my belly is so imposing.cos all the fat thats there :slight_smile:

anyway today while lifting weights, i had the strange idea to do them while sitting down. I noticed that when sitting down i felt my muscles stressed under the weights much more than if i was sitting. I only managed to get 8 or 6 reps on all of the exercises while if i had been standing up,i could have pulled out 10 or 12.

Am i right in guessing that lifting heavy weights sitting down is more efficient than while standing up. I want to hear your thoughts on this.
thanks

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
lil_diesel90 wrote:
Your shoulders are almost the dead last place on your body to recieve fat of any kind. So naturally it is harder to make them broader and more bulky in general if you have no fat on them to build with.

Thats probably why my belly is so imposing.cos all the fat thats there :slight_smile:

anyway today while lifting weights, i had the strange idea to do them while sitting down. I noticed that when sitting down i felt my muscles stressed under the weights much more than if i was sitting. I only managed to get 8 or 6 reps on all of the exercises while if i had been standing up,i could have pulled out 10 or 12.

Am i right in guessing that lifting heavy weights sitting down is more efficient than while standing up. I want to hear your thoughts on this.
thanks[/quote]

Well I suppose if you are sitting you would isolate the muscles more as the stabilizing muscles in your lower body would not be working as hard.

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
Am i right in guessing that lifting heavy weights sitting down is more efficient than while standing up. I want to hear your thoughts on this.
thanks[/quote]

I would never do a standing overhead press. I have seen that on this forum a lot and don’t get what the interest is. I would also guess they aren’t seeing all that much development overall from it. I do all shoulder exercises seated except for standing while doing “one armed lateral raises” (doing one side at a time).

Trying to stand while doing presses would take away the focus from the target muscle group and put it on stabilizing the weight above me. That would limit the weight I could use. While that may benefit a rank beginner, Someone who isn’t one doesn’t exactly need to focus on that much stabilization on shoulder movements when that can be trained using other more effective exercises.

I think that getting dumbbells into place for chest presses needs full body strength. Squats need full body strength. Very rarely will you see some small guy getting two 130+lbs dumbbells into place and pushing them up with anything near decent form. That is because it takes full body strength just to get them into place.

Bottom line, I wouldn’t risk my shoulders by using overhead presses while standing to accomplish this.

[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
KO421 wrote:
Svend Karlsen has big shoulders from lifting very heavy shit and eating like a bull.

Oh he does side and front raises to.

side raises and front raises to what? horizontal, 135 degrees, to failure…[/quote]

I don’t remember exactly but in his dvd Viking Power he does them heavily cheated with something like 80lb DB’s and he sure went to failure.

I think going to failure on a few finisher Iso moves isn’t that big of a deal, before this he also hit close to 400 on a log push press so that might have something to do with it.

Great, now i am pissed for not having known this before.

[quote]WeaponXXX wrote:
Some guys rather have huge arms, while others prefer huge chests. My favourite are shoulders. I have always had big shoulders but i really want to get a strong broad mean kinda shoulders. Thats why i have bought some free weights.

I am planning on working my shoulders three times a week.
these are the exercises i would do:
Lateral raises
Front raises
Bent over laterals
Military presses.

How many sets and reps should i do to get the mass on??how much rest should i get in between?
thanks.[/quote]

you might want to leave the front raiser alone for now I do military presses front/back along with laterals twice a
week 5 sets, 5 reps

[quote]Mad Titan wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:
Some guys rather have huge arms, while others prefer huge chests. My favourite are shoulders. I have always had big shoulders but i really want to get a strong broad mean kinda shoulders. Thats why i have bought some free weights.

I am planning on working my shoulders three times a week.
these are the exercises i would do:
Lateral raises
Front raises
Bent over laterals
Military presses.

How many sets and reps should i do to get the mass on??how much rest should i get in between?
thanks.

you might want to leave the front raiser alone for now I do military presses front/back along with laterals twice a
week 5 sets, 5 reps[/quote]

I never do front raises and haven’t for years. Heavy incline presses for chest have made mine pretty big. I don’t see a need in trying to make them much larger than they seem to be growing as it is. I think most of the people doing front raises could use their time better elsewhere unless they are truly lagging in that area.

I got to doing timed handstands, which led to handstand push-ups. I wasn’t far off my body weight with my military press, so if there’s a big discrepancy, or you’re just huge, might not be worth it. Military presses often hurt my shoulders, but handstands were okay.

Really just doing the handstands and negatives to get strong enough to do the push-ups were the main point.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
WeaponXXX wrote:
Am i right in guessing that lifting heavy weights sitting down is more efficient than while standing up. I want to hear your thoughts on this.
thanks

I would never do a standing overhead press. I have seen that on this forum a lot and don’t get what the interest is. I would also guess they aren’t seeing all that much development overall from it. I do all shoulder exercises seated except for standing while doing “one armed lateral raises” (doing one side at a time).

Trying to stand while doing presses would take away the focus from the target muscle group and put it on stabilizing the weight above me. That would limit the weight I could use. While that may benefit a rank beginner, Someone who isn’t one doesn’t exactly need to focus on that much stabilization on shoulder movements when that can be trained using other more effective exercises.

I think that getting dumbbells into place for chest presses needs full body strength. Squats need full body strength. Very rarely will you see some small guy getting two 130+lbs dumbbells into place and pushing them up with anything near decent form. That is because it takes full body strength just to get them into place.

Bottom line, I wouldn’t risk my shoulders by using overhead presses while standing to accomplish this.[/quote]

you are as always full of knowledge. maybe i will rename myself student X.
thanks :slight_smile:

[quote]Professor X wrote:
I do all shoulder exercises seated except for standing while doing “one armed lateral raises” (doing one side at a time).

I think that getting dumbbells into place for chest presses needs full body strength. Squats need full
[/quote]

It never occurred to me to stand with dumbbells, and now I have an idea why I never see anyone else do it either. What about a barbell though? I gave up on the seated overhead barbell press due to shoulder pain from the bar starting too far back. Now I use the power rack to start out under the barbell in a more comfortable manner or do a hang-clean and press it up.

Do you just stick to DBs, always have someone for a liftoff, or have a more ergonomic seated mil-press station at your gym?

Or maybe I just need to work on shoulder flexibility and specifically train the rotator cuff…

[quote]polluted wrote:
Professor X wrote:
I do all shoulder exercises seated except for standing while doing “one armed lateral raises” (doing one side at a time).

I think that getting dumbbells into place for chest presses needs full body strength. Squats need full

It never occurred to me to stand with dumbbells, and now I have an idea why I never see anyone else do it either. What about a barbell though? I gave up on the seated overhead barbell press due to shoulder pain from the bar starting too far back. Now I use the power rack to start out under the barbell in a more comfortable manner or do a hang-clean and press it up.

Do you just stick to DBs, always have someone for a liftoff, or have a more ergonomic seated mil-press station at your gym?

Or maybe I just need to work on shoulder flexibility and specifically train the rotator cuff…

[/quote]

I use mostly machines for overhead presses now. In the past, most of my work was with a barbell when I had regular training partners. Around the time one of them had a shoulder injury, I switched to using a Smith machine for BTN presses (bringing the bar down to only ear level as the goal has always been to avoid an injury in that area). I then used mostly dumbbells for a while and now use the plate loaded Cybex machine and the plate loaded Hammer Strength machine for that movement.

Either way, what I do right now doesn’t mean this is a recommendation to anyone else. I train this way because I already put my time in on the basics and these work for me. My shoulders have improved more over the last 3 years than they did in the years before that.

[quote]Professor X wrote:
…I use mostly machines for overhead presses now. …[/quote]

Nooooooooooooo. Well at least you don’t do any isolation exercises.

You could get kicked off T-Nation for that.

[quote]baretta wrote:
You’re never going to get huge shoulders doing front raises and side raises. They are not mass building exercises. To put on any upper body size you have to get stronger, which usually means getting bigger, eating more and doing heavy compound movements like bench and shoulder presses.[/quote]

But by doing side lateral raises it can make the shoulders look wider and width is important if you want your shoulders to look big and mean

I totally agree with X on the front raises, any chest and incline work is already probably over kill for most people on the front delts, besides you have 2/3 of the muscle left, and most people just finish off with overhead presses for shoulders.

Im not sure if X agrees, but bigger shoulders for me has resulted more from lateral and rear lateral raises to increase the most mass of that muscle and with from a rear view. nothing makes you wider than massive rear and side delts that make your should pop and touch your ears.