Stregthening Your Shoulders

what are some good lifts for building up your all around shoulder muscles.

Military presses with barbell are great, they have helped me add some "width" to my shoulders. You can do them seated or standing. I do both to mix it up. But really, seated force you to use just your shoulders and triceps to perform the lift and you will really get a good pump if you keep the weight moderate and reps high.

Substitute dumbbell presses too for a full range of motion.

Another great exercise is front cable raises, if your gym has a cable machine with lateral adjustable arms, lower them to the lowest position so they are vertical with the floor then select a light weight that you can use to do isolated front raises. Keep your arm bent a little at the elbows, not straight so you don't over stress your elbow joint (you are young, but start thinking of your joints as in ten years of lifting you will be glad you did). Just alternate raising them to shoulder height...and bam...feel the burn.

You can superset with the dumbell presses if you really want to get a great should workout.

If you don't have a cable machine, you can use a 45 plate or whichever you can handle and do front raises with that.

all around shoulder mass..seated presses, hands down winner imo

thanks guys i'll make sure to incorporate this into my new routine

also dont forget heavy bench presses..as a secondary muscle group the front deltoids receive quit a pounding..at least for me

I'm a sucker for standing push presses ... then again, my focus is not as much for straight hypertrophy as it is for explosive strength and functionality.

I agree with the push presses for explosive strength...believe it or not I think incorporating the push presses a year ago is what helped me break through a bench plateau I had for a couple years...

DJones is right on the money, if you are benching correctly your front delts will get hit hard. As a matter of fact, the seated shoulder press rack is right next to one of the benches at my gym and I did a super set for chest/shoulders last week that was spot on...225 10x10 bench with 135 10x10 on shoulders back to back...I dare anyone to try this with 1:30-2:00 min rest between supersets...your shoulder and chest will be pumped and you'll wake up sore the next day

dude now that's a super set, brutal indeed

Brutal indeed!

I bet your upper body is totally swole after that half an hour of hell!