7 Exercises For Massive Shoulders
7 Exercises For Massive Shoulders
By Ronny Rockel
Those Boulder Shoulders
At first glance, Ronny Rockel’s physique flows with such harmony that you may not think he has any standout body parts. But after a bit of perusal, you realize he does have a few muscle groups that are truly spectacular. His pecs are thick, full and striated. His quads are meaty, deeply detailed and feature exceptional sweep. And it would be tough to argue against Ronny’s shoulders being his best body part. They would have to be, otherwise how could he stand next to some of the IFBB’s top pros and still be a standout?
Yes, Ronny’s shoulders are a big reason he is able to do so well because wide, round delts help create the illusion of greater mass. When you get right down to it, bodybuilding is a sport of illusion. Assuming you don’t have a weak chest or arms, building up the shoulders to their maximum possible dimensions and then carving clear splits and striations into them through years of hard, intelligent training is a winning strategy for any man who wants to be a champion bodybuilder. If you can manage to craft a pair of wide boulder shoulders like The Rock has, you will definitely take out plenty of rivals whether or not you can match them on height and weight. Nothing about Ronny’s physique has been created haphazardly or by accident. The following details the seven exercises that this master physique technician employs to build those cannonballs that sit atop his clavicles.
1. Overhead Presses
Being that these photos were taken the day after a contest, Ronny chose to do his presses on a machine. Those of you who have taken your physiques down into the lowest possible levels of body fat and water retention need no further explanation, but suffice it to say that nobody in totally shredded condition is in any mood to be pushing up mega-heavy loads of free iron.
Normally, Rockel chooses two of the most difficult pressing movements a man can do: the standing barbell press and the seated dumbbell press. Both require balance and coordination, along with brute power. That being said, he has avoided injury over the years both by utilizing thorough warm-ups and a slow and controlled rep cadence. A warm-up of 30 reps is done first, followed by 2 sets of 15-20 reps. “I avoid extremely heavy weight, extremely low reps and explosive movements for deltoids,” he explains. “They are isolated muscles with many heads and attachments, so they demand extreme discipline and concentration.”
You won’t catch Ronny doing ballistic or cheating reps. For his final set of presses, being sufficiently warmed up, he challenges himself with a drop set of 6, 6 and 6 more reps for a total of 18. Each rep is done slowly even until the very last, ensuring constant tension on his shoulders.
2. Dumbbell Lateral Raises
If you’ve spent your fair share of time in gyms, you probably know that the two exercises commonly done with lousy form are curls and lateral raises. It’s typical to see guys heaving and throwing up way more weight than they have any business handling, and in the process stimulating the target muscle about as effectively as an ugly hooker could arouse a dead man (you like that one?) To eliminate the potential for cheating, Ronny stands with the front of his torso glued to the upright on an adjustable bench set to its highest setting. Each and every rep comes up to a full contraction of the medial deltoid head, with reps starting at 20 and proceeding down to 15 and 10 over the course of 3 sets. Other guys might feel like big shots flinging up a pair of 70s or 80s – but I don’t think Ronny is feeling too inadequate using 30-40 pounds in each hand and building round, capped delts that those clowns will never remotely approach in their lives.
3. Lateral Raise Machine
Machines are often shunned for lateral raises, but Ronny feels this is a big mistake. “Using a lateral raise machine allows you to literally get directly to the deltoids without having to go through the arms as a lever,” he points out. He’s right. If, God forbid, any of you ever tear a biceps or triceps or fracture your wrist, you could still maintain some shoulder mass using a lateral raise machine. But why do two different lateral raise movements? “The front delts get worked all the time on presses for the chest and shoulders,” Rockel observes. “The side deltoids should get two exercises, because they can never be too full or round.”
4. Upright Rows
Upright rows are a hybrid movement that works both the traps and the side and rear delts. You can hit more traps with a narrow grip or you can tap into more medial deltoid fibers with a wider grip. The line in which you pull also makes a difference. “For the traps, you want to pull straight up,” Rockel observes. “If you want to feel the shoulders working more, pull in an arc as if you are trying to go up and behind your shoulders.”
5. Behind-Back Shrugs
In the spirit of No Bull, I will let you know that Ronny hardly ever trains his traps directly, as he feels they seem to get more than adequate indirect stimulation from various exercises for the back and shoulders. But when he does, behind-back shrugs, as made famous by eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney, are his go-to exercise. “What I like about them is that I feel them in that lower trap area that regular shrugs with a barbell in front or dumbbells at your sides just doesn’t seem to reach,” Rockel explains.
6. Rear Lateral Machine
Rear delts are considered so important to Ronny that he trains them in a different workout along with triceps. On top of that, he employs not only two different rear lateral movements, but he also uses two distinct grips on the first. That would be the machine many of us call the reverse pec deck. Ronny runs through his entire sequence of warm-ups and work sets first with his palms facing inward and thumbs up, then starts all over again with palms out and thumbs down. Once you try it both ways, you will also see that you do feel different aspects of the rear delts being hit. If you don’t feel you need that much rear delt work, try alternating those two grips from workout to workout.
7. Bent Dumbbell Laterals
Just as he does with dumbbell side raises, Ronny makes use of an adjustable bench to keep his form honest and ensure that his rear delts are doing the work. This time he sets it at roughly the same angle you would use for incline dumbbell presses for chest, but flips over so he’s facedown. You definitely can’t go as heavy this way as compared to the freestanding bent version – and that ought to tell you something. Again, Rockel’s globular, 3-D delts are living proof that higher reps with moderate weights and an intense focus on feeling the muscle work delivers stunning results over time. If you insist on going ultra heavy and flinging weights around, don’t come crying to the message boards about how your delts are “stubborn” and you keep getting injured!
Get Ready To Rock
Ronny’s spectacular delts will be one reason he rightfully stands as one of the pro scene’s longtime competitors. Considering his consistency and longevity in the sport, and the fact that he’s one of the few top pros to have never experienced a training injury, it would behoove all of us to look again at his training methods to see what wisdom can be gleaned from them.
RONNY ROCKEL’S DELT ROUTINE
Rear Delts
Rear Lateral Machine (palms in)
1 x 30 (warm-up)
2 x 15-20
1 x 6, 6, 6 (drop set)
Rear Lateral Machine (palms out)
2 x 15-20
1 x 6, 6, 6 (drop set)
Bent Dumbbell Laterals
3 x 25, 20, 15
Front and Side Delts, Traps
Overhead Press
1 x 30 (warm-up)
2 x 15-20
1 x 6, 6, 6 (drop set)
Dumbbell Lateral Raises
3 x 20, 15, 10
Lateral Raise Machine
3 x 20, 15, 10
1 x 6, 6, 6
Upright Rows
1 x 30 (warm-up)
3 x 30, 20, 15
1 x 6, 6, 6
Behind-Back Barbell Shrugs
3 x 25, 20, 15
Training Split
Monday
(a.m.) Chest, calves, cardio
(p.m.) Biceps, forearms, cardio
Tuesday
(a.m.) Back, abs, cardio
(p.m.) Rear delts, triceps, cardio
Wednesday
(a.m.) Quads and abs
(p.m.) Hams, calves, cardio
Thursday
(a.m.) Shoulders and abs
Friday
(a.m.) Abs and cardio
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 5,000 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. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area.
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