MONUMENTAL DELTS BY LARA McGLASHAN Add historic width with these hard-hitting shoulder techniques Few bodyparts are as tricky to train as shoulders. After all, you need to work three delt heads so they appear symmetrical, and no single exercise recruits them equally. Furthermore, a heavy diet of benching may do wonders for your chest, but it also seriously stimulates your front delts, meaning your rear delts will quickly fall behind if you’re not careful. It’s no wonder that many recreational bodybuilders find it a difficult balancing act to, well, balance their delt development. We sought out the advice of four former hardgainers who successfully overcame this problem area to become top pro and amateur bodybuilders. These men had to get tricky with their training to elicit gains from their stubborn shoulders. While some of their theories and approaches are unorthodox, they all worked wonders to swell flat, desolate delts into caps worth craving. So be a human guinea pig and test some of their routines on yourself — see if you can’t yet put the boulder into your shoulders. 1. BREAK FROM TRADITION OMAR DECKARD, 32 For 19 years, amateur bodybuilder Omar Deckard followed traditional muscle-building protocol: plenty of compound overhead motions, standard straight sets and lots of heavy weight. While he successfully bulked up his shoulders, he eventually realised this programme left him all but devoid of definition. “I was so focused on pushing heavy weight that I neglected the shaping and sculpting motions that give one bodybuilder’s physique an edge over another’s onstage,” says Omar. To sharpen his competitive edge, Omar broke from routine, beginning with a bump in training volume. “I gave shoulders two workouts per week, one for mass like I had been doing and the second for shaping,” he explains. “For the shaping routines, I prioritised the rear delts to bring them up, lowered the weights significantly and increased the reps, and I focused on connecting mentally with my muscles, feeling them move and contract.” Omar’s shaping session begins with a double dose of rear-delt work, starting with four sets of bent-over lateral raises — performed facing a bench set to a 30–45-degree incline to prevent cheating — followed by four sets of reverse flyes on the pec-deck machine. Next, Omar hits his middle delts with four high-rep sets of standing lateral raises. “I do 30 reps per set but never rest more than 45 seconds in between,” he says. “Even though I’m using way lighter weights than before— 25-pound dumbbells instead of 45-pounders — the intensity is off the charts.” Then Omar grabs a 15–20-pound dumbbell and stands erect with his back flat against a wall to help reduce cheating. Using a neutral grip (palms facing each other), he cranks out 10–12 front raises one arm at a time. “As I raise the weight to eye level, I move my arm slightly to the outside to take the tension off my chest, and at the top, I twist my wrist inward slightly,” he says. Omar finishes his programme with the seated overhead barbell press, the only compound move in the entire workout. “Since I pre-exhaust the entire shoulder complex, getting in all the reps here is difficult,” admits Omar. “Still, my shoulder development is unbelievable. I mean, I’ve been doing this routine for only a few months, and the size I’ve built up over the years has finally begun to take shape, like I’m moulding a lump of clay into a sculpture.” OMAR’S EXERCISE • Incline Bent-Over Lateral Raise Lie face-down on an incline bench set to a low to medium angle, your chin over the top of the bench to maintain a neutral spine. Grasp a dumbbell in each hand with a palms-in grip. Allow your arms to hang straight down from your shoulders, locking a slight bend in your elbows. Inhale and raise the weights up and out to your sides in a wide arc. As you approach shoulder height, tip your thumbs downwards slightly and hold for a moment before reversing the motion. 2. DUMP THE EGO GEORGE FARAH, 33 Nowadays, no one would mistake pro bodybuilder George Farah for the slim young man he once was, when his frame was almost thinner than a coat hanger. Although he hoped to change his adolescent physique with weightlifting, George’s shoulders wouldn’t budge. “I couldn’t understand it, because I was doing what everyone else was doing — pressing heavy, heavy weight and training them 2–3 days a week,” he says. “And while everyone around me was growing like crazy, I stayed small and flat. It was frustrating.” It was also painful, as the young athlete was frequently injured from his relentlessly heavy training. “What I was doing was obviously not working for me, so I cut down my training volume to once a week, dropped my weight increments and increased my reps from six to 16,” he remarks. “It was hard, though, because I had to ignore my ego, which told me I had to lift heavy. But using impressive weights was also responsible for my injuries, so it was time to try something altogether different.” George’s new routine begins with either lateral or front raises, alternating between the two from one workout to the next. “Not only do I change the movements to train the muscle in different ways, but I make other variations as well,” he explains. “Sometimes I do the exercise standing, sometimes seated; sometimes I use cables or machines, sometimes free weights.” After four sets of raises, George performs four sets of overhead presses. “Since the front or lateral raises served as pre-exhaust movements, I need only 8–12 reps to fail on presses instead of 12–15, saving my joints from wear and tear,” he says. He finishes with either bent-over lateral raises or dumbbell shrugs, alternating weekly between the two. “For the shrugs, I make sure I bring my shoulders to almost touch my ears, and for the bent-over lateral raises,I keep my upper body really still and steady to reduce momentum.” After 2–3 months, George began to see results — his shoulders grew and thickened almost before his eyes. His body also healed and recovered, and the previously sore young man was now injury-free. “These days, no one mistakes me for an adolescent,” laughs George. “At least not to my face.” GEORGE’S EXERCISE • Smith-Machine Seated Overhead Press Sit on a short-back bench in a Smith machine and take a slightly wider than shoulder-width,overhand grip on the bar. Unhook the bar and slowly lower it toward your clavicles (it should pass just in front of your nose), keeping your wrists directly in line with your elbows and your chin lifted. When the bar nearly touches your upper chest, forcefully press the weight back up, stopping just short of elbow lockout. Immediately go into the next rep. 3. BRINGING UP THE REAR MARK DUGDALE, 33 Overtraining. As much as we harp on its drawbacks, many smart guys still fall victim to its lure, wanting to do more to become bigger faster. Such was the story for Mark Dugdale, a rookie pro bodybuilder who was stuck for years in the amateur ranks partially because of his flagging shoulders. “I used to hit shoulders twice every eight days, forcing 4–5 sets for each exercise, hoping to make them grow,” he says. “I was also training really heavy on chest, which blasted my front delts twice more per week. Nothing was growing well, especially my rear delts, which were pretty much nonexistent, and I was sore and tired a lot.” To move forward with his development, Mark decided to radically change his ways: he cut his shoulder training to once per week and streamlined his sets to no more than two per exercise. He also prioritised, putting rear delts first since they needed the most work. Mark begins his new workout with either one-arm bent-over lateral raises or reverse pec-deck flyes. “Doing rear laterals one at a time really helped me feel the rear delt working so I could target it more effectively,” he remarks. Next comes a sickening compound set to help add mass while carving some separation between his front and middle delts. “I do 4–6 negatives on a shoulder-press machine with the help of my partner, taking about four seconds to complete each repetition,” he notes. “Then I immediately pick up a set of dumbbells and do lateral raises to failure, usually getting in about eight good reps.” Then Mark hits the cable machine for one-arm lateral raises to further punish the middle delts and build roundness in his outer caps. “I like cables because they help keep the tension on your muscles for both the positive and the negative portions of the rep,” he explains. Mark finishes his routine with seated overhead presses on a Smith machine, a compound movement that’s extra tough to do at the end of his workout. After 3–4 months of using this focused, high-intensity routine, Mark’s shoulders were growing like never before. “And I actually have rear delts,” he adds. “I can finally turn around and do a back double biceps pose with pride.” MARK’S EXERCISE • One-Arm Bent-Over Lateral Raise Hold a dumbbell in one hand, place the other on your hip or thigh and lean forward at your waist while keeping your back flat. Let the weight hang straight down from your shoulder and lock your elbow in a slight bend. Raise the dumbbell up and out to your side, leading with your elbow until the weight is about even with your back. Reverse the motion and complete all reps for one side before doing the other. THE SUPERSET METHOD RON KUCZYNSKI, 38 Although most guys would be thrilled to have huge guns, for amateur bodybuilder Ron Kuczynski, his 23-inch arms were a curse in disguise. “My bi’s and tri’s were so big they took over my arms completely, especially when I hit a side pose,” he says. “No matter what I did for my shoulders, I could never bring them up to match my arms.” His genetic foibles forced Ron to come up with an unorthodox plan of attack to help balance his upper body. “I cut my training to once a week, and I alternated between training shoulders on their own with high reps and less weight, and a second workout in which I superset shoulders with chest,” he explains. “I did the same shoulder exercises on both days, but I think the supersetting day gave me the most gains.” Ron begins this workout with a superset of isolation movements. “I do 12–15 cable crossovers, then immediately move into a set of bent-over cable lateral raises,” he says. “I rest 45–60 seconds, then I’m right back in there.” Ron then moves to a flat bench, where he supersets medium-grip bench presses with seated dumbbell lateral raises. “I like to do 12–15 laterals with both arms together, then add five more with each arm separately to really wear them out,” he adds. Finally, he wraps it up with a combination of incline barbell presses and alternating front dumbbell raises, both of which work his front delts. One year later, Ron can flex with pride. “It took only about two weeks for me to begin seeing results with this plan, and now my shoulders are fuller and rounder, like melons,” he boasts. “And not some little cantaloupes, either — we’re talking honeydews!” RON’S EXERCISE • Seated Dumbbell Lateral Raise Sit on a flat bench and hold a pair of dumbbells with your palms facing in and your elbows locked in a slightly bent position. Without using your back, slowly lift the weights up and out to your sides, elevating them smoothly until they reach shoulder height, then slowly lower back to the start. When you’ve completed 12–15 reps with both arms at the same time, drop one weight and do five more reps with each arm for the ultimate burn. M&F Former fitness competitor Lara McGlashan is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles, USA. She can be reached at larafitgal@aol.com