Delt Demolition - Shoulder Training Tips and Workouts From 6 Deltoid Kings
Delt Demolition! Shoulder Training Tips and Workouts From 6 Deltoid Kings:
Dennis Wolf - Evan Centopani - Jay Cutler - Dexter Jackson - Branch Warren - Roelly Winklaar
By Ron Harris
There is only one muscle group you can’t hide, not that you’d want to – the shoulders! Nothing imbues a man with an aura of rugged power more than a set of wide, round deltoids. We gathered up the best shoulder-training advice from six men who all built some of the very best delts of modern times, so you too can get yours growing today.
Dennis Wolf
Are Free Weights Safer Than Machines?
“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.”
Don’t Do Laterals First
“I don’t like to do lateral raises first in a workout, 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.”
How Heavy Should Shoulder Training Be?
There are conflicting opinions surrounding how “heavy” shoulder training can be. Keeping in mind that “heavy” is always a relative term, I posed the question to the man known for his astoundingly huge shoulders.
“The weight you use should always depend on a couple of things,” Dennis begins. “First, you need to ask yourself if you are feeling the right area working, and if you are getting a pump in that area. If you aren’t, you need to look at your form and you probably need to go lighter until you get the right feeling and pump.”
But Dennis isn't suggesting anybody looking to build melon delts pussyfoot around with baby weights, either. “The best rep range for making the shoulders grow is 10-12,” he explains. “If you are able to do more than 12, use a little more weight. It’s a little bit of work to find that good balance for the right weight, but this is how you get the best results.”
Dennis Wolf’s Shoulder Routine
Seated Dumbbell Press
4 x 10-12
Dumbbell Lateral Raises
5 x 10-15
Dumbbell Rear Lateral Raises
4 x 10-12
Cable Rear Laterals*
4 x 10-12
Barbell or Dumbbell Front Raises
3 x 10-12
Evan Centopani
Behind-the-Neck Presses: the Best!
“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.”
Do Laterals First
“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.”
Beware of Overtraining the Delts
“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. 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.”
Evan’s Shoulder Routine
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
Jay Cutler
Laterals Can Come First
Many times, Jay does his lateral raises first, to get a good pump going in the medial heads of his delts as well as for a pre-exhaust effect. “I really believe that a pumped muscle responds better to heavy weights, and that you’ll feel the compound movement that much better if you do an isolation movement first,” he points out.
Jay’s style of performing lateral raises might raise an eyebrow among the form Nazis out there (who, I feel the need to mention, often have very little muscle mass to show for their perfect form in the gym), but it’s what works best for his particular structure. “You never know what someone is feeling when they do an exercise a certain way, which is why it’s ignorant to judge another person’s form – especially if it’s obviously working well for them.”
One look at the bulging round caps of Jay’s shoulders should be indication enough that the form he has adapted, which involves leading with the elbows rather than the wrists, is exactly the way he needs to do the movement. It might look like a hybrid between a lateral raise and an upright row, but it’s clearly been getting the job done for Cutler’s crazy side delts.
Don’t Neglect Rear Delts
Rarely do you ever hear a bodybuilder express a desire to build huge rear delts, but Jay professes that extreme development in the posterior heads is a little-known secret to stupefying width. “Whenever you’re seen from the side in the quarter-turns or the side chest or triceps poses, that extra development in the rear delts adds a whole other level of impressiveness to the shoulders that most bodybuilders are too blind to realize,” he says. The four-time Mr. O often does two dedicated exercises for this underrated muscle group, selecting from the rear delt machine, dumbbell rear laterals facedown on an incline bench, or the two-arm cable version that looks like the reverse motion of a cable crossover.
DoFront Raises
The prevailing school of thought regarding the anterior delts, and one which I happen to subscribe to, is that they get more than enough work doing any type of press for the chest or the shoulders, and as such don’t require any specific training. Cutler happens to profoundly disagree. “If you’re trying to build the best physique possible, you can’t neglect body parts,” he pronounces. “Of course the front delts get hit on presses, but to maximize the quality, detail and separation in them, you have to train them.” Jay prefers barbell front raises, and makes sure his anterior delts are in fact taking the brunt of the stress. “Don’t let your traps get involved, as they will on any lateral movement if you’re not careful,” he advises. “Try to think of your hands as hooks and your arms as a way to transfer the resistance on to the front delts.”
Jay’s Shoulder Routine
Seated Dumbbell or Machine Press
4 x 6-10
Dumbbell Lateral Raises
4 x 10
Front Barbell or Dumbbell Raises
4 x 10
Bent Dumbbell Rear Laterals
4 x 10
High Pulley Rows or Cable Rear Laterals
4 x 10
Seated Machine Laterals (FST-7 “sevens”)
7 x 10
Shrugs (dumbbell, barbell or machine)
5 x 12
Dexter Jackson
Dexter’s Top 4 Shoulder-Training Tips
1. Train smart, not just hard.
“If you have any desire to stay in this sport a long time, you have to learn to pay attention to your body and not ignore warning signs. Whenever you feel a strange ache or pain that could be the beginning of an injury, don’t try to ‘train through it’ and just hope for the best. Take a week or two off and don’t train at all. Crazy? This is what I have always done, and I have never had a training injury. Not one. I don’t think too many guys training hard for 25 years can really say that.”
2. Use good form and never worry about the weight.
“I consider myself a bodybuilder, and a bodybuilder shouldn’t worry about the weight he uses. A bodybuilder’s main concern should be the feeling in the muscle and working it as hard as you can. That’s how you stimulate growth, with good form and a strong mind-muscle connection. Too many guys have this powerlifter mentality where they think that they need to use maximum weights all the time. Their form is terrible and I am sure they are not even feeling the muscle work. I do lift heavy, but not so heavy that I sacrifice the whole reason I am training, which is to create the most perfect physique I am capable of.”
3. Overtraining can keep you small.
“The first few years I was training, I was sure that more was better. Work out more days a week, do more exercises, more sets. You know what? My gains were horrible. Only after I started talking to more people and reading up on recovery did I realize that I might have been screwing myself. Once I started cutting back on how much and how often I trained, the muscle mass started to come finally. If you haven’t been making any gains, don’t always think the solution is more training. Most of the time, the solution is less training and more rest.”
4. Use machines when needed.
“Most guys will find that after they have been training hard and heavy for many years, certain free-weight movements are too risky to continue doing. A lot of guys get hurt as they get older, by insisting on doing all the same heavy free-weight movements they have been doing since they were starting out. But the joints and connective tissues do experience wear and tear. You can substitute a lot of those movements with machine versions, and still get great workouts and results. But if you are going to be stubborn and do exercises you have no business doing anymore, you’re going to get hurt sooner or later.”
Dexter’s Shoulder Routine
Dumbbell Lateral Raises, One or Two Arms
4 x 10
Front Raises With EZ-Curl Bar
4 x 10
Machine Press
4 x 10
Dumbbell Upright Rows
4 x 10
Dumbbell or Machine Rear Laterals
4 x 10
Branch Warren
How He Turned a Weak Body Part Into a Strong Point
“My shoulders were my worst body part, for sure. My legs are genetically gifted, but I am very sure my delts are not at all. It just took years of hard work. For about six or seven years, I trained them twice a week. I had to stop that after a couple of months because they were starting to feel like mush. They weren’t recovering.
“My shoulders were weak both to look at, and in actuality. I remember struggling to try and get just a couple of reps with 95 pounds on the military press as a teenager. Pretty sad. I had to get pretty creative to bring my shoulders up. For a long time, I would pick one shoulder exercise every day and do five or six sets of it. That was no matter what else I happened to be training that day. I would throw in laterals at the end of chest day, and rear delts and front raises after back. I also did my full shoulder workout once a week. Later, I did shoulders twice a week with a heavy and a lighter day for three years, and that also helped them grow. But I knew if I did that forever, they would have just gotten overtrained.
“The exercises I did in the early years are the same ones I do today: military presses, lateral raises, rear laterals and upright rows. You don’t need to get too fancy with shoulders. My form has changed a lot on certain things. Some years ago I was training with these older guys who were all huge and strong, including Ronnie Coleman and Brian Dobson, and I was determined to use the same weights that they did. On presses I was OK, but on my lateral raises it was all momentum. My form sucked and my lack of side delts showed it. It got to the point where I finally realized how stupid I was being. I cut the weights in half, used much stricter form with my arms pretty much locked straight the whole time, and all of a sudden I could feel my shoulders doing the work. They started responding soon after that.”
Most Common Training Mistake He Sees
“Using too many machines and cables. I can see pressing on a machine or using cables as maybe a finishing move or to hit the rear delts, but barbells and dumbbells are what will build huge shoulders, for the most part. It’s tempting to use a lot of machines if a gym has a bunch of them, but you need to be careful you don’t start using all machines.”
Take Care of Your Cuffs
“When I was only 17 or 18, Brian Dobson tore his rotator cuff, and he was never the same again – in size or strength. That taught me a lesson. I never wanted that to happen to me, so I do my rotator cuff exercises and stretch every day. People don’t like to take the time – they want to get right to the workout. This is how I make my living, so I can’t get hurt. I’ve been hurt enough with the tears I’ve had, and the last thing I need is a shoulder injury.”
Branch’sShoulder Routine
Reverse Pec Deck
4 x 15
Seated Barbell Military Press
4 x 10
Dumbbell Lateral Raises
4 x 10
Dumbbell Front Raises
3 x 10
Standing Machine Press
3 x 15
Superset with
Barbell Upright Rows
3 x 10
Seated Overhead Cable Press
3 x 12
Roelly Winklaar
Seated Dumbbell Press
Roelly’s longtime trainer, Sibil “Grandma” Peeters – or “Oma,” as he called her (the Dutch word for grandma) – showed him several ways to make the dumbbell press a much more productive exercise. Most bodybuilders do their overhead pressing with their back up against a pad. That allows them to use more weight, but it also means that they are leaning back and doing something more like an incline press. A true overhead press should be done with your back perfectly straight, so that the medial delts can work as hard as the front delts. All the old-school bodybuilders from the 1940s, until around the late ‘70s, used to do all their dumbbell and barbell presses standing up. For several years, Roelly did all his presses seated, without back support.
Oma also taught Winklaar the importance of a full range of motion for overhead presses. Most bodybuilders only lower their arms to “parallel,” the point where their upper arms are level with the floor. He goes down a couple of inches more, until the dumbbell actually touches his shoulder.
“Think about it,” he says. “The guys with the best legs, like Branch, Kai and the great Tom Platz, didn’t just squat to parallel. They buried the weight! When you bench press, don’t you touch the bar to your chest for a good stretch? So why would you miss out on that full range of motion on presses?”
The reason isn’t because it’s dangerous. Most guys won’t go that far down for the same reason they insist on back support – so they can handle heavier weights. One thing Oma always stressed is that it’s not about the weight. It’s about how hard you make the muscle work.
One last tip from Roelly: “I like to hold the dumbbells off center, with my pinkies up against the inside edge of the plates, and angle my hands slightly downward so my thumbs are lower. I feel more activation in the side head of the delts when I use this grip.”
Shoulder Bombs
This is one shoulder blaster that helped earn Oma her nickname of “The Trainer From Hell,” and Winklaar still keeps it in his shoulder-training repertoire. I will let him explain how this odd but intense movement is done.
“Shoulder bombs start at about what would be the middle of a lateral raise,” he begins. “Starting with your arms straight out to your sides and your palms facing up to the sky, you bring the dumbbells up in a half-moon shape and rotate your hands down. At the top position, the dumbbells are almost touching, your pinkies are up in the air, and your thumbs are aimed at the ground.”
Nobody needs much weight for shoulder bombs. Even Roelly, at over 280 pounds, only uses a pair of 30s. Average mortals like us would probably be all set with 15s or 20s at most. And it’s safe to say that you should do these at the end, if not at the very end, of the workout.
Roelly’s Shoulder Routine
Hammer Strength Press
Warm-up, 2 x 20, 3 x 10-12
Seated Dumbbell Press
Warm-ups, 1 x 20, 1 x 15, 4 x 12
Lateral Raises
3 x 12
Shoulder Bombs/Overhead Lateral Raises
3 x 12
Dumbbell Shrugs
4 x 10
Bent Lateral Raises
3 x 12
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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