Shoulder Exercises

The shoulder has very small muscles and the joint itself can be injured very easily so you really need to watch your form when doing shoulders.  Only lift as much weight as you can fully control.  If you cant take a full count of "one one thousand two one thousand" on the way up and on the way down then you are lifting too much weight and risking injury.  All the time you see people doing these shoulder exercises with really heavy weights but they cheat so much that you wonder if they are doing a leg workout or a shoulder workout.  Many of these exercises are done seated to remove the temptation of cheating using the legs.  Either sit on the edge of the chair or sit very lightly touching the back of the chair for balance.  If you sit normally and lean back, you recline slightly and end up working chest more than shoulders.  In all cases the only thing that moves is the arms, nothing else.  Important on all these exercises is to keep your elbows and hands in front of the plane of your body, your shoulder is very unstable and prone to injury if you hyperextend it behind your torso.  In all these exercises the shoulders are held all the way back, not rolled forward.  There are many exercises here, probably more than you have time for in one session so just choose different ones each week. I have broken these exercises down into mass builders and stabilizing exercises (at bottom of page). See also trap exercises.

Dumbbell Press (Mass Builder)

This video shows proper form for both variations of the dumbbell press, the simultaneous press and the alternating shoulder press. Some things to keep in mind:

• Do reps very slowly, try for 2-3s up and 2-3 seconds down.
• Hold momentarily at the bottom of the motion
• Don't lean against anything, this recruits chest muscles
• Hold the torso completely motionless, only the arms should be moving
• Don't touch or clank the weights at the top
• Don't spin the weights, keep your palms facing away from you.
• Use only a weight that allows you to use good form. If you cant use good form, use less weight.

You can watch a fullscreen version of the video here.

Side Raise (Mass Builder)

Many people just do shoulder presses, big mistake. The side raise is a great mass builder for the shoulder too. Here are some key things to keep in mind while doing these:

• No bouncing or jerking
• Do these very slowly, 2s up, 2s down
• Do these seated, it reduces the temptation to bounce the weights up with your legs
• Stop when your elbows are at shoulder height, don't go higher
• Keep elbows at 90 degrees and raise elbows in the plane of your body

Front Raise (Mass Builder)

Stabilizing Exercises For Shoulders

The shoulder has some really small stabilizing muscles that are very important to keep strong because it can help prevent injury. These exercises are also used sometimes in the rehabilitation of rotator cuff injuries. Working out these muscles will not add any mass you will see when you step on a scale and you wont see them at the beach either but they are very worth doing to prevent injuries. Think of them as very cheap health insurance. Ask anyone who has a rotator cuff injury how devastating it has been to their lifting and it will convince you of the value of keeping strong stabilizing muscles.

Remember, these stabilizing muscles are very small so you need to use small weights. This is a good time to leave your ego outside the weight room. Use too much weight on these and you are almost guaranteed to get an injury requiring expensive shoulder surgery to fix. Start out with 2 or 5lbs.

Use a very light weight on this, its a small muscle group.  Proper form is very important or you will hurt your shoulder or back.  Only your arms move, your legs, head and torso remain completely motionless - if you have to bounce then you are using way too much weight. 

Reverse Flys (stabilizing exercise)

The right way to do this exercise is to bend over so the back is horizontal and motionless, you can lightly touch your head to a table or bench to give tactile feedback that you are remaining motionless. From this position, we slowly raise the dumbbells up with straight arms till the dumbbells are as high as our shoulders, we hold in this position for a second, then slowly let the weight down. When the weights are in the up position, your body should look like a "T" when viewed from above.

Don't:

• Don't arch your back like a hissing cat
• Don't sag your back like a banana
• Don't go too fast
• Don't bob your head up and down
• Don't use too much weight
• Don't lift hands your above shoulder
• Don't swing weights up
• Don't using legs
• Don't sweep arms back like a 747 ready for takeoff

Watch fullscreen version of this video.

Innies and Outies (stabilizing exercises)

There are two exercises here, the first "innies" is when you rotate your arm in toward your core. The second exercise "outies" is when you rotate your arm out away from your core. You can do these with exercise bands but I prefer to do them with light dumbbells. When you use dumbbells, do these laying on the floor rather than a bench. In both exercises, the elbow stays tucked against your side lightly and is bent at 90 degrees.

Form

• Your palm always faces down
• Do these very slowly, 2-3s up and 2-3s down
• No bouncing or jerking
• During outies, stop when your arm is horizontal

Watch fullscreen version of this video.