BUILD BIG SHOULDERS
It's time to look like OUR DEATHSTAR SHOULDERS OVERLORD Derek from More Plates More Dates HAHAHA, no muscle group will have a bigger impact in creating the ILLUSION of UNGODLY SIZE.
BIGASS SHOULDERS WILL HELP YOU LOOK ENHANCED EVEN AS A NATURAL!
BIGASS shoulders will make you leave your DYEL days behind, you'll look strong with a shirt, with a hoodie, and you'll never be able to buy cheap blazers anymore because them stupidass shoulder pads will forever make you look like you're working for the GINYU SPECIAL SQUADRON.
General considerations.
Your shoulders have three heads, the front delt (Anterior head), the side delt (Lateral head), and rear delt (Posterior Head), we're going to take a peek at how to optimally stimulate all three of them, and you might be wondering, didn't you cover rear delts on back hypertrophy?
Yeah, I sure did, but 99% of us are LAGGING A LOT on rear delts, most training plans neglect them and these fuckers can take A BEATING, it's extremely important to reach an aesthetic fucking awesome physique to work them as hard and as often as you can.
Volume considerations
Delts are really tricky, front and side delts require minimum stimulus to be above average because your heavy-ass pressing and pulling movements and already stimulating them to a good point, but rear-delts as I said before, unless you're pretty good at weighted pull-ups— they're probably making your entire upper arm look ALL WONKY, the thing is, you can have the biggest triceps in the world, without powerful round rear delts connecting to it, it looks like a SAUSAGE when you're not flexing.
So for this one, we'll split the volume consideration by each head of the shoulders:
Front Delt Volume:
To keep your front delt gainz requires: 0 working sets a week.
To get decent front delt gainz requires: 0 working sets a week.
To get OPTIMAL front delt equires:4-8 working sets a week.
To go FULL BEASTMODE and brag shoulder pain: 8+ working sets a week.
The thing is, if you're benching a lot, your front delts are already seeing CRAZY stimulation, to get them as big as possible, you should only add some minimum direct work like OHP, and front raises and they'll already be looking solid, but be careful, they can overpower your physique and make the rest of your shoulder look like shit.
Side Delt Volume:
To keep your side delt gainz requires: 6 working sets a week.
To get decent side delt gainz requires: 6-10 working sets a week.
To get OPTIMAL side delt equires:10-20 working sets a week.
To go FULL BEASTMODE, NOT OPTIONAL, YOU GOTTA DO IT: 20+ working sets a week.
Once again, the side delt is working every time you're pressing and pulling, it's getting enough stimulation to not get smaller, but if you want to make it bigger, you need to attack it directly, and they CAN TAKE IT, you'll notice that you can essentially throw side delt work daily and never get sore or weaker, meaning that in a matter of 1 day, they're already recovered.
Rear Delt Volume:
To keep your rear delt gainz requires: 0 working sets a week.
To get decent rear delt gainz requires: 4-8 working sets a week.
To get OPTIMAL rear delt equires:8-16 working sets a week.
To go FULL BEASTMODE and this time, YOU SHOULD: 16+ working sets a week.
Take notice that if you're doing HARD pullups, it counts towards the rear delts volume, the same way benching counts towards front delt volume, triceps volume, and chest volume, when I said before 0 sets for front delts, it doesn't mean 0, it means it's getting it's stimulus elsewhere.
So always leave some time at the end of your workouts to at least put a pump on your delts ‘cause they can endure a BEATING, also, you DESERVE BIG SHOULDERS, and that pump just feels great and will make you look FREEAGIN AWESOME!
Shoulder exercise sequencing.
When it comes to FRONT DELT training I use the following sequence:
Activation sets
Overloading sets
When it comes to REAR/SIDE DELT training I use the following sequence:
Activation sets
Finishers
When I'm just throwing REAR/SIDE DELT extra volume I use the following sequence:
Finishers
I only directly work my front-delts with Overhead-Presses, push-presses, and behind-the-neck presses, here and there, once or twice a week maximum, for hypertrophy there's no big reason to do it more than that.
Now REAR/SIDE DELTS are a different story, to make them AS BIG AS POSSIBLE, I work them every time I workout, 3 dedicated days, and 3 days where I only use special metabolite techniques after finishing my other muscle groups to pump a lot of blood into them.
To me, the most important component to building bigass shoulders is FREQUENCY, it doesn't need to be heavy, just pumping them daily is the way to go.
Activation Sets
Activation sets are designed to pump blood into the muscles that will then get SMASHED in the workout, their main focus is keeping your body primed to work, reducing the risk of injury, and extending your longevity.
The shoulder joint is pretty fragile, you should treat it with a lot of caution and attention, so keep the weights REALLY light, let me give you an example, Even though I can OHP 180lbs for reps, my lateral raise work is done with 15lbs, I don't put strain in the muscle, is all about the pump, feeling the muscle, mind-muscle connection.
Focus:
Pumping blood.
Exercise suggestions:
Cable Rope Facepulls, inclined dumbbell lateral raises, lateral raises, upright barbell row.
Rep range: 8-12
RPE: 4-5
Primary Progressive Overload Strategies:
Fatiguing the muscle.
Mind-muscle connection
Stretch under-load sets
Not optimal for shoulder training considering the risk of injury.
Overloading Sets
Overloading sets for shoulders are NOT REQUIRED, OHP is a wonderful strength builder and will make your front delt look like a boulder, but the stress in your lower back can actually be detrimental to the rest of your training— so be careful, if you're looking solely for hypertrophy and you’re already benching to build a nice chest, there's no reason to do it.
Finisher sets
Here is the BREAD AND BUTTER for DEATHSTAR SHOULDERS, and beginners looking to train like maniacs, you can do this too, side/rear delts respond WONDERFULLY to special metabolite techniques, my favorite for delts is DROPSETS and GIANTSETS.
Pick a really challenging weight that you can perform with good form, crank 8 reps, drop it and immediately reduce the weight by 30-50%, and crank as many reps as possible, FEEL THE BURN, be loud, be RIDICULOUS, there's no way around it, you'll look stupid as fuck training delts properly, but it WILL PAY OFF.
GIANTSETS are pretty simple, establish a target number of reps, let's say 100, do the exercise for as many sets as you need to hit the target number of reps.
Focus:
Going to failure and BEYOND.
Exercise suggestions:
Machine lateral raises, Reverse Pec Deck, inclined dumbbell lateral raises, lateral raises.
Rep range: AMRAP
RPE: 10+
Primary Progressive Overload Strategies:
Increase reps.
Exercise selection.
A brief Tier list of my favorite exercises for the muscle group.
Tier S - Exercises that are OPTIMAL to maximize hypertrophy.
Rope Face pulls
leaning single arm lateral raises— dumbbell and cable.
Reverse Peck Deck
Seated Military Press
Tier A - Exercises that beginners, intermediate, and advanced lifters COULD be doing to get GREAT hypertrophy.
Standing Overhead Press
Dumbbell Lateral Raises.
Reverse Flyes
Tier B - Exercises that beginners don't need to do, but intermediate and advanced lifters should incorporate in their workouts to mix things up.
Push Press
Front Raises
Arnold press
Lateral Raise Machine
Cable Upright Row
Inclined Lateral Raises
Barbell facepulls
Tier C - Exercises that are NICHE and designed for a specific goal.
Smith Machine Upright Row
Bent Lateral Raise
Dumbbell Facepull
Incline Dumbbell Facepull
Barbell Front Raise
Dumbbell Front Raise
Smith Machine Seated Shoulder Press
TIME TO LOOK NATURALLY ENHANCED!
Stay on the IRON PATH, MY BRUDDAHS!
Big KISS,
THE POTATO MAN