Training shoulders may not ignite as much excitement as training your chest, back or biceps, but they should. Not only are shoulders easy to train and maintain, but broadening them out is an effective way to cheat your upper body into looking bigger and broader, and can make your waist appear smaller. What’s better, you don’t even need the gym to give them a blasting, just a pair of dumbbells and these five exercises are enough to leave you with delts for days.
Building strength in the muscles around the shoulder joint is crucial to support overall shoulder health. According to Physical Therapist and Strength Coach, Jeff Cavaliere: “The shoulders are often chronically weak due to undertraining, so having strong shoulders supports the rotational nature of the shoulder joint in all the activities of daily living as well as in your strength training workouts.” He also adds that this will help prevent shoulder injuries, which are extremely common among gym goers, as well as the general population.
This workout comes from Oner Active Athlete, Hayley Madigan. “It is essential to target the entire group of muscles that make up our shoulders,” she writes on her Instagam post. She’s not wrong either, as most people tend to focus most of their attention on the front of the shoulders – good thing then that the exercises Hayley’s chosen target the front, middle, and rear delts. Work your way through the exercises below, performing three rounds of each exercise, resting for 90 seconds to two minutes between each round. Here’s your exercises:
- Underhand Frontal Raises – 12-15 reps
- Lateral Raises – 10-15 reps
- Neutral grip single dumbbell shoulder press – 6-10 reps
- Bent Over Reverse Fly’s – 12-15 reps
- Overhand Frontal Raises – 12-15 reps
Another good muscle group to train alongside your shoulders is your triceps and back, as these are also considered your ‘pushing’ muscles. Here’s a dumbbell-focused back workout that you can try next, and a short (but spicy) tricep finisher using no equipment, just your bodyweight.
