Shoulder Workout Tuesday 15th April 2009
My shoulders seem to be progressing quite well in recent weeks, I think this is down to the heavy duty training that I’ve done. Though now I’ve decided to do a few more sets of shoulder press at a slightly quicker rep speed and go heavier on the weights. I’ll come back to heavy duty training in my next period which begins in May.
First exercise for shoulders is always the compound exercise, which for me is the shoulder press machine. My gym has Technogym equipment, which I find is really good at ensuring your joints are not placed under excess pressure and that the correct muscles are isolated during the exercise. I’ve used some machines in the past that are quite frankly awful, to the point where I’ve had to stop using them because the pain they cause exceeds any benefit they would ever provide.
- 20kg x 12 reps (warmup)
- 30kg x 12 reps (warmup)
- 40kg x 10 reps
- 50kg x 10 reps
- 60kg x 8 reps
- 50kg x 9 reps
- 40kg x 10 reps
I was quite pleased with my workout today, I managed to do three more reps at 60kg than I managed last week, so that’s measurable progress! I spent about 4 seconds on each rep, making sure that I held the rep at the top, but I wasn’t very good during the negative. I think the machine only goes up to 67.5kg, so once I get to that weight, I will go back to doing these heavy duty style, taking 10 seconds over each rep.
After shoulder press, I moved onto the dumbbells to do some isolation exercises. First up is the lateral deltoid raises, otherwise known as flyes by some. You can vary this exercise a bit to target the lateral deltoid in a slightly different way. If you learn forwards, you will place the emaphasis toward the back of the shoulder, whereas if you stand straight up, the emphasis is more toward the front of the shoulder. So if when you look at your shoulders they look front heavy (this is the norm), you will need to do more work on the back of the shoulders and back of the lateral deltoid head.
- 10kg x 10 reps
- 10kg x 10 reps
Next isolation exercise for the shoulders was the anterior or front deltoid raise. There are some bodybuilders that would argue you don’t need to do this exercise because the front of the deltoid gets a lot of stimulation from doing shoulder press and also secondary stimulation from doing bench press. I still train it beccause I always think the front of my shoulders look a bit underdeveloped. Maybe I should stop training them and see what happens!
- 12kg x 10 reps
- 12kg x 10 reps
My last exercise for shoulders today was the rear deltoid raises which I find I can go heavier than any other deltoid exercise. I think this is because this exercise uses the back muscles a bit, and my rear shoulders are pretty well developed from all the heavy back work that I already do. Generally I think my body is slightly out of proportion in that my chest is small compared to my back, which is usually not the case, as most people train the chest more and tend to neglect the back.
- 16kg x 10 reps
- 16kg x 10 reps
That was it for my shoulder workout, I was pleased with it, I need to aim for more reps on the front and lateral deltoids next week, but other than that I was pleased to see some progress on the shoulder press at 60kg.
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