Having great shoulders really makes you appear sleek and powerful. However, chest and back training does not suffice when attempting to build spectacular shoulders. You must train the shoulders directly, intensely, and often. Be attentive of these common mistakes that people make when training shoulders.
Avoiding the Overhead Press
One of the greatest methods any bodybuilder can use in building incredibly developed muscles all over is focusing on compound exercises. The barbell military press is one of those exercises. If you aren’t doing barbell military presses; you’re simply limiting your shoulder development. Is it an easy exercise where you just have to fling your arms? No. But it’s an exercise that’ll develop your shoulders beyond the majority of isolation, and it’s a functional exercise as well.
Training shoulders after chest
This is an understandable blunder, but not the wisest one. When training chest, your shoulders are one of the main stabilizing muscles in most of the exercises done for shoulders, so training shoulders the day after a chest day is a bad move.
If your primary concern is chest development, and you don’t really care about developing broad, thick shoulders, then maybe that’s okay. But I think the majority of people should train shoulders at least a few days after chest in order to maximize their numbers on shoulder day, and come in rested in a manner that won’t over train their shoulders.
Neglecting the Rear deltoids
This is an extremely common error. The rear deltoids aren’t show off muscle and, thus, tend to get neglected quite often. However, if you have any plans of competing in bodybuilding, or just want to look good from the rear in general, training rear deltoids is extremely important. This muscle can really separate your physique from your counterparts who choose to ignore it.
Bent over dumbbell raises, upright rowing, and lateral raises on an incline bench are several good rear delt exercises you can perform to get started on building an impressive pair of rear delts. Keeping your arm straight on lateral raises.
Lateral raises are designed to focus on the middle deltoids, the correct form is to raise your arm up from your side with a slight bend in the arm keeping your arms locked in position. The problem is that many people fail to keep their arms locked in position they start with a 90-degree bend at the bottom and their arm straightens to 180 degrees at the top, this is more common when doing one arm at a time. Straightening the arm turns the exercise into more of an elbow extension and cause's the triceps to do the work and not the deltoids. So remember keep your arms locked with a slight bend only.
Lifting heavy weights on behind-The-Neck presses
Lifting heavy weights is certainly the way to go when training the shoulders, that's the how you increase your strength. However, when you are lifting heavy weights for low reps it's best to use presses where you lower the bar in front of you. Doing behind the neck presses cause's the shoulders to be externally rotated which is one of the biggest causes of sport injuries. So loading up the bar with maximum weight is only going to increase your risk of injury. So just remember next time your training shoulders stick to moderate weights for behind-the-neck-presses.
Remember you should always train smart first, then train hard. You will be healthier, injury free with better gains
Using too much volume
The shoulders are the easiest muscle group to over train because they are indirectly involved in other exercises you do for almost all of the upper body. Chest training hits the front delts hard. Back training stress the rear delts greatly. Even compound exercises for the triceps such as close-grip bench presses and weighted dips use much power from the anterior delts to get the job done. For this reason you should absolutely never train the shoulders directly more often than once a week.
You also need to be aware of training overlap so you don’t sabotage either the work-out intensity or the recovery of your shoulders. For example, don’t train the shoulders less than 48 hours before or after training the chest.
You’re ignoring chronic shoulder issues
when it comes to the shoulder joint, susceptibility to injury is maximal since lifters often develop muscle imbalances that make one side of a joint stronger and tighter than the other resulting in chronic pain and tightness in the rotator cuff. Set yourself up for success by pairing shoulder-press movements with sets of pulling exercises to stabilize the shoulder blades, where all four of rotator cuff muscles attach. Also, be sure to routinely stretch and release the muscles of the chest and front deltoids to lower your chances of injury and encourage pain-free pressing.
Using Improper Form
Improper form is even more of a dangerous element than on something like arms where you’ll just simply suffer in development as form issues with shoulders can cause joint issues very easily. On seated barbell shoulder presses and dumbbell seated presses especially, you’ll want to avoid going down too low on repetitions as it can be dangerous to your rotator cuff. You’re better off saving yourself the mental benefit of feeling like you did something special by performing full reps, and instead saving your rotator cuffs.
Be sure to keep a fairly narrow grip on most shoulder pressing movements, as this is better for your rotator cuffs, and will help you to avoid injuries.
Too Fast and Furious
Especially when it comes to side laterals and front raises, trainers tend to go too heavy and use too much momentum. Each delt head is relatively small, and to isolate them, you need to minimize both momentum and assistance from other muscles. You may not want to be seen holding 20-pound dumbbells, but if that’s what it takes to best isolate your medial delts, and then those are the weights you should be grabbing.
Lack of Exercise Variety
Shoulders may be the only body part you train with just free weights. It’s true that barbells and dumbbells are the most effective training tools, but you can too easily fall into a rut of doing the same three or four free-weight exercises the same way, workout after workout. Variety is also an effective tool. Try including a different pressing exercise each shoulder workout. Try including a different pressing exercise each shoulder workout. A Smith machine is an effective tool for wide-grip rows; hold each contraction and flex your rear delts.
