The Road to Huge Delts with Evan Centopani & Dennis Wolf
The Road to Huge Delts with Dennis & Evan
It’s often said in bodybuilding that “shoulders make the man.” You simply can’t have a great physique without owning a pair of wide, round, melon delts. Every Mr. Olympia champion has had great delts, because without them you can’t have a V-taper or an X-frame. In Evan Centopani and Dennis Wolf we have two men known for spectacular shoulders, wide as a doorframe and as thick and round as a volleyball. I spoke with both men to see what these Shoulder Kings had to say about the three-headed muscle we all want to develop to the max.
Do you think it makes any difference whether you do your shoulder presses with free weights or a machine?
DW: I do. I think free weights are more effective to build mass, and more recently I have also found that they are actually safer to press with. They are more effective because they force you to work harder to balance and coordinate the movement. That limits the amount of weight you can lift in a way, but that’s actually a good thing. For about a year or two, I was doing almost all my shoulder pressing with a Smith machine. I didn’t have to balance it, so I could just load up a lot of weight and push! I could get reps with four 45s on each side. But here’s the problem. With a barbell, your body will adjust to its natural position that’s best and safest for your structure. With a machine, you are always in the same position and maybe it’s not right for you. Another problem with machines, at least for me, is I don’t warm up as much because I don’t feel like I need to, so I get to the very heavy weights fast. Long story short, I started to get shoulder pain for the first time in my life. I went back to using only free weights for my pressing, and soon the pain went away. So for anyone who thinks machines are always safer than free weights, I found out that’s not true at all.
EC: I just think free weights are far more effective at stimulating muscle growth during presses, due to the extra factor of having to stabilize the weight. You want to hear something weird? As a kid, I always did my barbell presses behind the head, because a book I had that showed the various exercises showed that version, not to the front. People say it’s an unnatural movement, but it always felt natural to me. When I tried pressing to the front, that felt unnatural. Your head is in the way! I think it’s a superior way to do them if you can, because I feel it more in the whole shoulder. A good compromise is dumbbell presses. You can lower the weights down right next to your ears, so the movement really is straight up and down over the shoulder joints. The only problem with dumbbells is that once they get pretty heavy, getting them up into position to start the set is tough. But overall, I would rate behind-neck presses the best, dumbbell presses a close second, and military presses third. Those seem to hit more front delts than anything else.
A trend I’ve heard lately is more bodybuilders focusing mainly on lateral raise movements and saving presses until later in the workout when the side delts are “pre-fatigued.” Does that idea make sense to you?
DW: I don’t like to do that, for two reasons. Number one, pressing with a barbell or dumbbells takes balance, and you need to be pretty fresh for that. I find if I don’t press first, the movement itself is awkward even though I still have a lot of strength left. The second reason is that I want to be able to use the most weight on presses, in good form of course. Presses are what really build the most mass. The only time I think this idea of pre-exhausting makes sense is if you have some shoulder pain that makes heavy pressing impossible, or else just for a change once in a while.
EC: Personally, I think that’s a sound strategy. I find that when I do laterals first, I feel the presses working the muscle fibers a lot more effectively than if I press first. Many times I do my presses last on shoulder day. It’s not so different from squatting last on leg day, which I’ve been doing for a while now. The weights can’t be as heavy, but in this case that’s not a bad thing; quite the opposite. Less weight is safer on your joints, and at that point where the muscle is fatigued already, it’s working the muscle as hard if not harder than a heavier weight would have.
What rep ranges do you feel work best on pressing movements, and what is an effective rep range for lateral movements?
DW: I like doing 10-12 reps for all shoulder exercises. I do pyramid up in weight, so there are times when I only get 8 reps on my last set with the heaviest weight I am using.
EC: For presses, I like to do about 8-10 reps. On any lateral movement, I would never do anything less than 8 reps, and often my sets will be as high as 14-16 reps.
In the photos, you are both doing dumbbell front raises and bringing the dumbbells completely overhead, rather than stopping at shoulder or eye level as most guys do. Do you feel that going up all the way is the actual proper way to do these, meaning that’s the full range of motion that most are missing out on?
DW: It’s funny, I remember seeing photos of Arnold doing this kind of front raise, so in my early years when I was like 19-21, I did them like this too. It’s OK unless you go very heavy. This movement with a heavy weight can be very dangerous to the shoulder joints.
EC: I’ve been doing them this way for years, and it was my idea to do them like this for this shoot. If I stop the weight around nose level, I only feel my front delts working. If I go up all the way, I can feel more of the side delts activating too.
Speaking of front delts, do you feel most bodybuilders need to train them directly, or do they get enough stimulation from presses done for both shoulders and chest?
DW: I do think they need some direct work, but only a little bit. I do 3 sets of front raises after my presses, more just for a pump than anything else.
EC: Most guys probably don’t need to work them directly. I don’t see a lot of weak front delts unless the shoulders in general are weak.
Now, what about rear delts? Have they always been in proportion to your side and front heads, and if not, how did you remedy that situation?
DW: I have always trained rear delts, and they have always been developed well and in proportion.
EC: It was actually a few years into training before I even thought to do anything specific for rear delts. I was in college and training with one guy who finally broke the bad news to me. He said “Evan, your shoulders look awesome from the front. From the side, it looks like part of them was hacked off— there’s nothing back there at all.” From then on I started working them. Having rear delts made such a difference. It seemed to me like my shoulders doubled in size because they finally looked round and full from every angle.
Because the shoulders are involved in chest and back training, is there a danger of overtraining them? What measures do you take to make sure that doesn’t happen?
DW: I don’t think anyone needs to train shoulders more than once a week, because they are getting work during those other workouts. It’s also important not to train them on days when they were either just worked indirectly the day before, or they are going to get worked indirectly again the following day. In my off-season, I have rest days before and after the day I work shoulders. When I change my split for contest prep, I do arms the day before shoulders and hamstrings the day after, so they are still safe from being overtrained.
EC: Shoulders can actually take a pretty good beating. That being said, you always do need to be concerned about where your shoulder workouts fall in relation to your chest and back workouts, like Dennis said. You don’t need to do as much for shoulders as some people do, either. If you’re keeping it all business in the gym and not screwing around, there is no reason it should take you more than 45 minutes to finish delts. I often get them done in 30.
What are the biggest mistakes you think many bodybuilders make in their shoulder training that keep them from ever seeing the development they should in their delts?
DW: A lot of guys go much too heavy on their lateral raises. They swing and heave the weights up, and their shoulders are hardly getting anything out of it. The best thing they could do is put those dumbbells back, grab a pair that’s only half as heavy, and start trying to get really good contractions for the side delts. You are much better off using 25s and working the side delts than you are swinging up 50s and working your arms, traps and lower back.
EC: I can’t really add much to that— going too heavy with shit form holds most guys back from growing in general. You see shit form on lateral raises 10 times more often than you ever see someone doing it right.
Dennis Wolf Shoulder Workout
Barbell Military Press 4 x 10-12
Barbell Front Raises 3 x 10-12
Dumbbell Lateral Raises 5 x 10-12
Dumbbell Rear Lateral Raises 4 x 10-12
Cable High Pull With Rope 4 x 10-12
Wolf’s Training Splits
Off-season Training split*
Monday: Chest and biceps
Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: OFF
Thursday: Shoulders and triceps
Friday: OFF
Saturday: Back and traps
Sunday: OFF
*Calves are trained every other day.
Pre-contest Training split*
Monday: Chest
Tuesday: Quads
Wednesday: Arms
Thursday: Delts
Friday: Hamstrings
Saturday: Back
Sunday: OFF
*Calves are trained every other day, abs are trained every day.
Evan’s Shoulder Routine (typical)
Lateral Raise Machine 4 x 8-20
Dumbbell Lateral Raises 3 x 8-10
Seated Dumbbell Press 3 x 8-12
Bent Dumbbell Laterals 3 x 12
Reverse Pec Dec 3 x 12
Evan’s Training Split
Monday: Chest and abs
Tuesday: OFF
Wednesday: Quads and hams
Thursday: OFF
Friday: Back and calves
Saturday: Shoulders and arms
Sunday: OFF
Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 3,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989, and maintains the popular website www.ronharrismuscle.com, most notable for its blog “The Daily Pump.” He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area.
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