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- [00:00]
Thumbtack
Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out Indecision, overthinking, second guessing every choice you make in plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done out beige on beige on beige in Knowing what to do, when to do it and who to hire, start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today.
- [00:27]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Spring is in full swing, which means it's time for spring cleaning. Don't worry, we've got everything you need to stock up on spring cleaning essentials because a clean home is a happy home. Shop in store or online for spring cleaning favorites like Method All Purpose Cleaner, Swiffer Heavy Duty Mopping Cloths, Lysol Bathroom Cleaner, Scotch Brite Sponges and Clorox Disinfecting Wipes and Save. Offer ends April 22. Promotions may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump Mind Pump with your hosts Sal DeStefano, Adam Schafer and Justin Andrews.
- [01:11]
Sal DeStefano
You just found the world's number one fitness, health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Today's episode all about developing amazing shoulders. We talk about the shoulders, their function, exercises, reps, sets, the whole deal. Now this episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Meal One. This is a high protein oatmeal that also has digestive enzymes, vitamin D and probiotics. It's actually a phenomenal product. I think it's 30 grams of protein, 40 grams of carbohydrates, 8 grams of fat. Easy to make. Go check it out and get 25% off. With our code go to creaturesofhabit.com that's K R E A T U R e s of habit.com forward/mindpump so that's creatures with a K. Use the code MP25 for 25% off. Also this episode we talk about developing the shoulders. We have a shoulder workout mod. It's just shoulders in this workout program so you can plug it into your normal workout. And it's 50% off right now because of this episode. So if you're interested, go to maps fitnessproducts.com find the shoulder mod and then use the code shoulders for 50% off. Here comes the show. One of the most aesthetic and functional muscles of the body. One of the muscles that are probably one of the most important muscles of the body, especially the upper body, is the Shoulders. Today's episode, we're going to go all about or talk all about the shoulders. Where they are, what they do, what they're the best exercises, rep sets, all that stuff. So this is the shoulders.
- [02:39]
Adam Schafer
Shoulder boulders.
- [02:41]
Justin Andrews
This was my first, first. My first ever specific muscle that I, I attempted to like, program to develop. Meaning, like, obviously when I was target. Yeah, like, obviously when I was working out, I was trying to, to build my, my entire physique.
- [02:57]
Adam Schafer
Because the girl shamed your shoulders?
- [02:59]
Justin Andrews
Yeah, it was because of the trainer. It was the, the, the female trainer that worked for me. She. So I was already in, in management by this time. And her name was Sabine. I'll never forget her. She was this German girl that was a competitor and she obviously had a great physique. She was about 10 or 15 years older than I was. And I thought, well, she would be a great person because she's in the competitive world and has a great physique. To ask to critique my physique and tell me what I need to work on now, what? In my head, I'm going, like, she's gonna say the calves or legs or something, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's for sure what I'm gonna get, you know, so for sure I'm like, prepared for that.
- [03:34]
Sal DeStefano
Like, yeah, hear that? You just want to take your shirt off so she can listen.
- [03:37]
Justin Andrews
Not like that.
- [03:38]
Sal DeStefano
What about.
- [03:39]
Justin Andrews
And she, she tells me that I have weak shoulders.
- [03:43]
Sal DeStefano
She's. The words weak. She said they were weak. Wow.
- [03:47]
Justin Andrews
Yeah, she said, your shoulders are really weak. I was so insulted, but. And at the same time not aware. I honestly, if you would have asked me, I would have said, oh, she's going to say my calves or my legs or something like that that are out of balance. That's what I was ready to hear from her. But when she told me that my shoulders were weak, I was like, I felt so insulted, but also very motivated.
- [04:09]
Sal DeStefano
You know, the delts are interesting because they're. It's one of the most, I guess, versatile parts of the body. You know, humans evolved to have these really versatile shoulders to be able to throw with accuracy, right? We're apex hunters. It's a complex system of joints and movement and muscle. And then from an aesthetic standpoint, here's where evolution plays a role, right? When you look at a body and you look at the upper body, the shoulders. Put the body together. Put the upper body together. Like, really, like, if you have well developed everything but not good shoulders, makes a huge difference. If you have well developed Shoulders and your arms aren't that great. Your chest isn't that great, Hub, for your upper body, you still kind of look good. And I think it's because it sends a message.
- [04:49]
Justin Andrews
This is what I didn't understand. I didn't, I did not understand that before she had communicated that to me. And up until that point, shoulders were kind of an afterthought in my programming. My thought as a trainer even was every time I do bench press, I'm getting the front of my shoulders. Every time I do rows, I'm getting the back of my shoulders. So every once in a while I threw some lateral raises into the mix, but never really addressed my shoulders because I didn't think it made that big of a difference until she pointed that out. And then it wasn't until I actually went after it and developed them that I went, oh my God, what a huge difference.
- [05:26]
Sal DeStefano
They're called the deltoids and I believe it's named after the Greek letter that looks like a triangle. Because if you look at the shoulders from an anatomy standpoint, it's this big round muscle and it attaches. There's lots of attachments, right? The clavicle, the acromion, the scapula. So it kind of goes all the way around and it's got like lots of different functions. Now from a, I guess from a muscle building perspective, when we think of the shoulders, we think of the front shoulder, the side shoulder and the rear shoulder. That's usually what we talk about, the front delts, side delts, real delts. But it's a little more complex than that. As far as actions are concerned. You're looking at adduction either to the front, to the sides, or even to the rear. You know, you're looking at kind of this rear fly motion. You're looking at stabilization. And what's interesting about the shoulder, it's one of those, those areas that you, that it comes along with another moving joint or part. The scapula. You really can't separate the deltoid from the scapula because, like, try to raise your arm overhead without having your shoulder blade, you know, rotate out and you're not going to go very far. Right. Try doing a lateral raise or a front raise without the scapula being involved.
- [06:34]
Justin Andrews
It's like the hips very similar, right?
- [06:37]
Sal DeStefano
Right.
- [06:37]
Justin Andrews
Very similar femur and the pelvis, I thought.
- [06:39]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah, very, very similar. So it's got like all these different functions. It's really important in almost every lift that you do. And as a result, we just think they look good, aesthetically speaking. They're a very important muscle. And aesthetics typically follow importance. Right. So we like well developed hips because that means you can run fast, you're pretty stable, nice strong back because it means you probably carry a lot of shoulders because you probably throw far and defend yourself. So it's like one of those muscles real important. And I used to tell this to female clients too who want really nice looking arms. They almost always what they really mean is they want nice looking shoulders. Yeah, yeah, they say arms, but really what it is is they want those delts because the delts is what gives.
- [07:14]
Justin Andrews
Isn't that weird though? Because that's how I thought too. I mean, I trained arms like crazy because I wanted great arms and I actually didn't think shoulders, you know, and then later on completely like laid off of doing buys and tries and I hit them so hard for so many years and started to focus on my shoulders. My arms actually shrank. But then I would get these compliments about how crazy my arms looked when my shoulder shoulders and that just because it separates. Separates from the buy in the tricep.
- [07:40]
Adam Schafer
Well, just from like a functional performance perspective, like that was always the limit. Limiter for me was I would get into these big lifts and start really advancing and then my shoulder would have, you know, some kind of impingement or some kind of problem that I had to work through. And then I would have to regress and kind of build myself back up again. And so there was just constant stress from like every movement, upper body wise, that I was placing my shoulders.
- [08:07]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah, well, I mean, what, what its strength is, its weakness, right. The shoulder, so versatile. Right. I could lift it out, move it to the front, press it overhead. I could rotate my arm internally, externally, I can combine all these different movements into like one big wide movement. But along with that versatility comes potential for instability. Yeah, right. Because when I'm lifting a weight in a linear way, right. Straight up and down, right. Or straight out to the sides, my body has to, my shoulder has to stabilize so it doesn't do all the other stuff that it could possibly do. And so shoulder injuries are the, some of the most common injuries in the upper body. With, with people who do strength training, it's got to be one of the most common injuries. And it's mainly because they train the shoulders without really regard for stabilization, without really regard for function.
- [08:52]
Justin Andrews
Well, either that or they, they neglect shoulders and they get a really strong chest or back over dominant that, I mean that was, I think that was what Was common with me too, is that it was. My limiting factor was the strength and stability in my shoulders. But I was developing the chest and the back so much that it was, it was that that was. I was leaking strength and power because of the lack of stability in there. And I think more than it is just not training stability in the shoulder. It's like just neglecting the shoulders altogether. And so then they don't catch up to the chest and back.
- [09:23]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah. Now, form and technique wise with exercise, this is true for all muscle groups. A good long range of motion, so long as it's appropriate. Right. So long as you can control what you're doing with good stability is superior to a shorter range of motion. But it's so much more important for the shoulders because the tendency to shorten the range of motion with the shoulders, it seems to be so high. It's one of the areas like when you look at shoulder presses and raises and upright rows and flies and all these different shoulder movements, I can almost always see a shortened range of motion. Almost always either at the full extension or all the way at the bottom. You almost always see rotation being neglected. It's one of those muscles where I would say. I would have to say it's one of the more common muscle groups that people don't train through its fullest capacity. And that's, I think, what leads to a lot of these issues.
- [10:16]
Adam Schafer
Well, because there's so much movement potential from that joint.
- [10:18]
Sal DeStefano
Totally.
- [10:19]
Adam Schafer
You know, in comparison to a lot of other joints, especially in the upper body. But yeah, yeah. To neglect any one of those movements is then to not present it as a priority in terms of the body maintaining that kind of strength and stability and control. And so you, you do lose access and it does diminish the way that it responds over time.
- [10:42]
Justin Andrews
How often would you guys say when clients would come to you and complain of shoulder pain, that there isn't like a major injury or anything going on? It's more often just a weakness in their shoulder stability that you have to. And then you can address that. And then all of a sudden.
- [10:56]
Sal DeStefano
9 out of 10 times. Yeah, 9 out of 10 times, in fact, weakness. In fact, out of the 90 out of 9 out of 10 times where it's a weakness. Out of that, I'd say good. 70%, like a majority, I could alleviate the pain, not fix it completely, but show them significant reductions of pain in one session. Like it was actually. In fact, I used to actually like hearing when someone came to me and said, hey, I'm thinking about Hiring you. But I have this kind of shoulder pain. I almost used to like hearing that because it was something I knew that I oftentimes could, like, right away make them feel better. And they say, well, I can't do a push up because it hurts my shoulders. And I'll say, well, where does it hurt? And they'd show me, and I'd say, oh, okay, let's do a couple of these movements here. Let's do some priming. Now try doing a push up. Like, oh, my God, the pain's gone. And it was such an easy way to convince somebody of my value. So it was almost always that. It was Almost always some kind of a weakness or instability type issue. And think of it this way. The shoulders have tremendous capacity for strength, but if the ability of the shoulder supportive musculature doesn't match with the stabilization, then you actually raise your risk of injury quite high. So what I mean by that is, you know, people can lift. I mean, there's people who've gotten really good at, like, overhead pressing, like, tremendous amounts of weight. Well, there's all these other muscles that have to prevent my upper arm here from twisting and rotating and moving out to the side and forward because of that joint is so versatile. And if those stabilizing muscles can't match the power, the raw power of what I'm trying to do, if I'm outside of form by a half a degree, boom, I'm gonna hurt my shoulder.
- [12:29]
Adam Schafer
Takes barely anything then to kind of set it off.
- [12:32]
Sal DeStefano
That's right. Yeah. This is why, like, full range of motion and different types of movements is, like, so much more important, I would say, for the shoulders and almost any other muscle group.
- [12:42]
Justin Andrews
Yeah.
- [12:42]
Adam Schafer
And one thing I found, like, to. To the point of not using its. Its full range was not using my rotation enough. And so I was, like, very dominant and just chest back movements like Adam was talking about, and just trying to build strength and. And stability there. However, it was just limiting the way that. That my shoulders were responding when there was any kind of a shift in. In the weight laterally or, you know, I wasn't able to then kind of adjust and control how it should because I wasn't. I wasn't going through those movements, and it wasn't responding to help be that supporting cast. So once I started to figure that out and go through a lot more rotational movement in my shoulders, it was an immediate performance increase, which I thought was interesting.
- [13:26]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah. Now let's talk about, like, rep ranges that. That you could train the shoulders in that Work really well. I have some interesting anecdotes and speculation I'd love your guys's opinion on. So wide ranges of motion. Excuse me, Wide ranges of rep ranges works best for pretty much the whole body. So you'll build muscle in low rep ranges as low as one rep. And you'll build muscle with high rep ranges, let's say as high as like 20 reps. Okay. So they all build muscle and your body will adapt to one if you train too long on it and you gotta move out of it. But I found the shoulders, they seem to respond really well to higher reps. Like, it's one of those muscles where.
- [14:06]
Justin Andrews
Oh, that's interesting you say that because I was going to make the case that when I think of. And this is obviously my own personal experience, my shoulders, I think, are the one thing on my body that actually responds really well to all rep ranges equally.
- [14:22]
Sal DeStefano
Right.
- [14:22]
Justin Andrews
Like, I've seen in tremendous gains by moving into the high rep range, superset way of training. I saw tremendous gains when I went down to like doing single push presses and things like that and like doing cleans. Like, so I. I have seen in comparison, if I looked at my buys and tries, high reps for sure doesn't respond as well. Low reps. The. My chest really respond. My back and my legs really respond. Low rep range. Oh, my God, they grew the most when I was doing loading. Really, really heavy and still also high, but not as much. My shoulders, my experience I have, I've seen that all rep ranges, it. They really responded well.
- [15:01]
Sal DeStefano
Here, let me, let me rephrase it, Adam, because, like, what muscle group do you. Responds best to things like drop sets, strip sets, run the rack. I feel like it's my sh. For me, it's been shoulders. Like, if I'm going to utilize like some kind of a technique where I'm doing lots of super sets, lots of reps, get a crazy pump. I feel like my shoulders seem to respond better. And I've seen this with clients. Now, I'm not saying that all the rep ranges aren't valuable, but I just seem to see. I think it has to do with the stabilization involved with the high reps in the. In the stamina that's required of the stabilizers. I don't know. I don't know if I. If just me.
- [15:37]
Justin Andrews
Yeah, I mean, I would make that case that my buys and tries got really good results from stuff like that. I did a lot of drop.
- [15:43]
Adam Schafer
Maybe because it's a smaller muscle group to your point. I guess too Like, I mean, they're involved with so many movements, so I would think that, like, their stamina capacity would be greater, you know, than some of the other single joint muscles.
- [15:57]
Sal DeStefano
Well, I mean, think about it this way. Like, you work your chest, you work your back, you're working your shoulders.
- [16:01]
Adam Schafer
Exactly.
- [16:02]
Sal DeStefano
So when you have a shoulder day, that's not the only day you're hitting your shoulders. You're hitting them quite a bit. It's almost like forearms.
- [16:08]
Justin Andrews
That would also make the case, though, why they would be more likely to be adapted to higher volumes than to. Than to maybe just take more punishment.
- [16:14]
Sal DeStefano
Maybe that's why. Maybe that's what I mean.
- [16:16]
Justin Andrews
I honestly, again, and I'm sure there's somebody who's listening who's just like, oh, I have stubborn shoulder. Because I've had clients that have said that they have stubborn shoulders. But per. When. When I went from that being a weak point on my physique to being actually a strength of mine in a relatively short period of my life, not like it was like overnight, but, I mean, a year or two of really putting energy and effort towards that, it went from being something that was pointed out by a physique competitor that, okay, that's your weakness, to this is something that, when I got into competing, that judges would highlight as, oh, you have great shoulders, and like, it pulled my back and everything else together. So I. I responded really well. Where I haven't had that experience with a lot of muscles. My. My chest was stubborn for most of my life. My back resulted pretty decent. I think I saw some pretty good growth there. Legs were stubborn. Calves have been stubborn. Arms were even stubborn. Even though that was a strength of mine, I hammered the out of them to get that point. So shoulders were probably one of the muscles I felt like when I put effort in all the rep ranges, I. I seemed to get good growth.
- [17:17]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah, I mean, I get. I mean, the bottom line is all the rep ranges are gonna be valuable. Now, I don't think they're appropriate for every exercise we'll get into exercises. But in other words, some rep ranges are better for some exercises than others. But like all body parts, you're gonna want to train in all the different rep ranges. And ideally, what you'll want to do is stay in a particular rep range for at least a few weeks, at least three to four weeks. Get yourself in the groove. Get yourself in the feeling of, like, lifting heavy or in the feeling of lifting light with higher reps so that by the second or third week, you're really doing it the right way. And then before your body adapts to the point where it really stops responding, you switch to a new rep range.
- [17:54]
Justin Andrews
Yeah, I, I, the point of me sharing that more than anything else was actually don't, don't shy away from, from utilizing all the, even down to singles. Like, I found like the push press was a really cool exercise and hang cleans were like a really cool exercise for me too.
- [18:10]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah, I did those.
- [18:11]
Justin Andrews
Incorporate me with or incorporate with like 1 to 2 to 3 reps, which I would. There's not a lot of exercises like that for a muscle that is as small as the shoulders. And I saw, I saw my shoulders blow up from some of that. So if you don't do low reps, I would, I would encourage somebody to, to, to actually utilize it. And then obviously if you don't do super setting, run the racks, the drop sets, the high volume type of training for your shoulders, you absolutely have to do that because I think they respond to both really well.
- [18:40]
Sal DeStefano
Let's talk about some exercises because what's interesting too about the shoulders is I don't know, maybe you see this with legs, with some stuff, but with the shoulders, there's a lot of exercises you're not supposed to do. Like the dangerous ones, don't do that. That's bad.
- [18:53]
Adam Schafer
Your neck press.
- [18:54]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah, don't do that. That's bad for your shoulders or that could possibly hurt you. So I think we should talk about those too. But let's talk about, I guess let's start with our first, like our favorite exercises. My favorite shoulder exercise is the basic standing overhead barbell press. It's my number one. But a close second would be a kettlebell press. The kettlebell press I really didn't do a lot until I became an adult in my 30s. And that's to say I never really practiced them. But when I did do them, the range of motion with a kettlebell was so wide because you come all the way down and because it involves rotation with the arm that I got good, like this good wide range of motion strength training from the kettlebell. So it's, I think it's more complete than the barbell. But the barbell did build the most muscle mass.
- [19:37]
Adam Schafer
Yeah, I mean, I would say kettlebell pressed for me mainly with the spiraling rotation involved, just because it, it feels very natural in the way that I would assume to raise my arm up over my head. I wouldn't just do it robotically like this, you know, if I was to grab something overhead, you get that Immediate rotation right away to reach. And so I felt like it mapped and patterned what your body's natural physiology strength.
- [20:07]
Justin Andrews
It would be for strength. It would be the most optimal keeping keeping a load close and centered to your body. You're always going to be able to load more so it makes sense.
- [20:19]
Sal DeStefano
Man.
- [20:19]
Justin Andrews
I have a lot of very favorite moves with my shoulders.
- [20:23]
Sal DeStefano
If you had to pick one like.
- [20:25]
Justin Andrews
When you're talking, don't do that to me. That's not even fair to you.
- [20:28]
Sal DeStefano
I know.
- [20:28]
Justin Andrews
I mean obviously the, the barbell, the barbell press and a full range of barbell, not a, not a military 90 degree shoulder press. A. Yeah.
- [20:37]
Adam Schafer
But let's say I, I credit you a lot for more awareness on rear delt work.
- [20:43]
Justin Andrews
Oh, that's.
- [20:43]
Sal DeStefano
No, we'll get there. Yeah, for sure.
- [20:45]
Adam Schafer
I, I just want to point that out because that was something that I neglected a lot and felt a massive difference.
- [20:51]
Sal DeStefano
Well, since you brought that up, when it comes to developing aesthetic shoulders, nobody realizes it or a lot of people don't realize it. The rear delts plays a huge role.
- [20:58]
Adam Schafer
Huge.
- [20:59]
Sal DeStefano
Rear delt is what makes your shoulder look round. Everybody thinks it's the side delt. It's the rear delt. The rear delt gives you that square, round looking shoulder.
- [21:07]
Justin Andrews
This for sure was the single biggest difference that I made in the aesthetics of my shoulder was putting so much emphasis on my, on my rear delts. And I have lots of favorite exercises. Let me, let me address all my, my favorite moves and why. Right. So Justin, you introduced me to the, the barbell push press. I, I and that also is what, and hanging out with you and training with you is also what inspired the hang cleans. Those are movements that I wouldn't have done in the past, especially since I was so bodybuilder focused. But lifting that much weight explosively, like that was just something that my body and it really grew from that. I love a single arm Arnold dumbbell press. Yeah, it's one of my favorite moves that I ever did. It's very similar to why you like the kettlebell press. So it was my bodybuilder version of that. I used to train in a gym that didn't have kettlebells. So had I had access to kettlebells, probably I would probably because it does feel comfortable to rest the kettlebell on the forearm. But if you don't then a single arm Arnold dumbbell press was like one of my favorite moves to do. And then like of course the barbell. So the barbell overhead press, the hang Clean. And I love to do a hang clean to a press where I put it all together or a push press. I got huge results from that. That's all front work. And then the rear, of course, rear dumbbell flies. But I absolutely love the free motion rear delt fly for this because of the consistent tension through the entire range of motion on the rear delt. You will not find anything else. The closest thing to that would be like a reverse pec deck is the closest feeling that I have to that. But when I, and I, and I've done a video on YouTube of where I hinge over and I pull the cable all the way through. So I'm in this complete. You're in the. As stretched as you can stretch that rear delt when you're here in this. And that's where like when you're sitting here on the pec deck, you're at rest and, and you're not, you're not in a full stretch position on that when you're pulled all the way through.
- [23:11]
Sal DeStefano
You have to start right there.
- [23:12]
Justin Andrews
You're, you're in a fully stretched position on the, on the rear delt. And then you pull it all the way out to its fullest range of motion. And there's constant tension on that. That machine free motion hinged over rear delt fly. I, I attribute that to some of the, the best rear delt gains that I.
- [23:30]
Sal DeStefano
All right, so there's, there's, there's a couple exercises that you'll hear are dangerous and you shouldn't do them. And I want to be very clear. Any exercise could be dangerous if you can't do it right and you lack the, the mobility and stability to do it and all. And any exercises can be safe if you could do it properly. You have the right mobility and right stability. Any exercise. Okay, so this is true for both. Now, some exercises require more skill, more mobility, more stability than others. So the, the, the potential risk is higher with more complex exercises, but that doesn't inherently make it dangerous. So when people say don't do this exercise dangerous or do this one. These are safe. That's a super overgeneralization. So I'll talk about two shoulder exercises that had profound effects on my shoulder development, mainly because when I first did them, I sucked at them because it didn't have the right mobility and stability. So I had to go real light and build myself up. And then when I did, what followed along with that was really good muscle development. The first one is an upright row. And you'll find Upright rows in a lot of maps programs. And every once in a while we'll get someone who'll be like, oh, my God, why you put upright rows in there? That's so bad for the shoulder. It's like you're. You're abducting with internal rotation while you're pulling the bar up. And that's so bad for. It's not bad for your shoulder if you could do it and you have the right stability, the right strength. But doing this upright row position here, this exercise right here blew my shoulders up. It developed such round delts. It also was a completely different movement from almost any other shoulder movement. There's almost no other exercise that's similar to it. And it also ties the biceps in with the shoulders, which is quite rare. As I'm pulling up, I'm using a little bit of biceps along my shoulders. So it's a different combination of muscles. Whereas with the shoulders, it's typically triceps that are assisting the shoulders.
- [25:14]
Justin Andrews
Since you're talking about form, this is a good time to address this that I find very common with developing shoulders. One of the most, like when I have somebody that who tells me they have stubborn shoulders and they can't develop their shoulders many times is because of their. Their form. What makes shoulders even more challenging to develop is how easily other muscles can take over the movement.
- [25:38]
Sal DeStefano
Totally.
- [25:39]
Justin Andrews
You talk about the rear delts being one of the biggest part of the shoulders. Really easy to do. A rear delt exercise that turns into a back exercise turns into a row. And to the, the. To the untrained eye, you will look at somebody who is doing a, let's say reverse pec deck, right where they're doing like a reverse fly, and you will have a hard time telling the difference between the guy who is using almost all back versus the guy who's using almost all shoulders. Hard to see the difference if you don't really understand the mechanics of how that that shoulder activates and moves. And so it's very easy for someone to do a same thing goes for when you're doing a lateral raise and allowing the traps to take over a big portion of the movement and not leave it on the lateral head of the shoulder. So that is, you cannot stress enough the form and technique on. On not only the safety part, but also on the part of developing the shoulder is if you quickly go right to like the heaviest load you can do, but your mechanics are off slightly, it's very easy for other muscles to overcompensate and then not Develop the shoulders.
- [26:40]
Sal DeStefano
Here's a cue I like to use with flies and laterals is when you're doing a lateral, you're not lifting the dumbbell up, you're lifting it out and away from your body. And you have to go light to do this properly. But when you're lifting it out and away from your body, you tend to disengage or not use the traps and upper back as much as when you're just trying to lift it so it's out. Same thing with the rear fly. I'm separating and bringing them out rather than bringing them back and up. That cue right there, I've noticed with clients made a pretty big difference besides the upright row. Here's another one that there's a lot of controversy around, which is funny because in the 90s, everybody did this exercise and for some reason it became unpopular is the behind the neck press. The behind the neck shoulder. You know what's funny about that? Olympic weightlifters do this all the time.
- [27:21]
Adam Schafer
Yeah.
- [27:21]
Sal DeStefano
This is like a staple exercise.
- [27:23]
Adam Schafer
I mean, I did this in college all the time. It was. And even, well, I guess before squat racks, like, how did you get the weight on your back? You know, that was a whole process of having to clean it, having to bring, bring it up and press it up and then, you know, decelerate, raise it down to your back and then, you know, to, to disengage too. I guess you could throw it back, but a lot of times you'd press it up. So it's. The ability was there as long as you develop the strength adequately, just like any other muscle. So it's, it's. If you don't have the range of motion to get that external rotation, you got to put the work in to, to make it possible, keep your elbows.
- [28:02]
Sal DeStefano
Under your hands when you press. That's a good cue for people to remember.
- [28:04]
Justin Andrews
So I had, I had to, I couldn't do this when I. And I actually remember when I made it a goal during when I was competing and I wanted to get to the place because I couldn't. Right. I couldn't do a behind the neck press comfortably without like having to push my head way forward. It was just, I just didn't have the ability to retract very well. And I started with just the bar, right? Yeah. This is at the time when I could probably show military press comfortably 225. And I would put the bar, just the 45 pound bar, and I'd put it resting like as if I was squatting, sitting in the middle. And I would just practice moving the bar.
- [28:40]
Sal DeStefano
And I bet you got a pump doing that.
- [28:41]
Justin Andrews
Oh, massive pump. And a massive workout from just that really light weight. And eventually then I added £10 and £10 and £10 and then got to the point where I could press almost as much weight behind the neck as I could in front of me like that. And felt my shoulders, felt. Felt some of the best they ever felt by working towards that.
- [28:58]
Sal DeStefano
I like it because what it does with my shoulder blades is it forces my scapula to come down and pinch back.
- [29:04]
Adam Schafer
Yeah.
- [29:04]
Sal DeStefano
When I'm at the bottom, versus with an up, with a. With a press to the front, my shoulder blades, a little spread. Right. So it's a different position for the shoulder blade. Plus behind the neck really actually requires me to contract my delts just to hold them there. So I'm getting like this contraction the entire time I'm pressing. But I always go lighter with it because it does require more mobility and stability.
- [29:23]
Adam Schafer
What's silly to me about that being sort of taboo is the same person would have them doing back squats. How are you even going to get in that position appropriately without that serious external rotation and then adding tension? Are you just resting on your spine without any support and muscular tension to work through? So it's. To me, that's. That's just kind of a. A funny thing. I think that it was. Of course, it's a safety red tape kind of a thing that was just like promoted.
- [29:54]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah, well, it was. The certifications would tell us, don't do these exercises because they required a higher level of skill from the trainer. And we were all new trainers. A lot of the stuff they told us in the first certifications we got were, don't do this, don't do that, don't do this. Because they didn't have confidence in our skill to be able to teach and train these exercises, which was actually to the detriment because it took me a long time to realize that these are not dangerous exercises. They're valuable. You just have to know how to do them properly, perform them properly. And you have to know why it hurts and how to address the reason why it hurts. But when you can do them and you do them right and you get stronger at them, you develop delts that are just phenomenal.
- [30:31]
Justin Andrews
You know, this wasn't on our list to talk about this, but you just reminded me of a point that I think it's important to make. If you're listening to the. Obviously you're listening to this. It's a masterclass on shoulders. And so you're probably trying to work and develop your shoulders. If you follow one of our main maps programs, which mostly are full body routines, you typically see shoulders, you know, third, fourth, or fifth exercise in many programs. Right. You normally have them front loaded with, you know, your, your leg exercises, then your back exercises and your chest exercises, and then shoulders. But if, if shoulders are an area that you really want to develop or are lagging in comparison, there's nothing wrong with you starting your lift your day with your front presses or your, or your big shoulder movement first if you want to develop it. A lot of times that was a miss. This was actually one of the big first shifts that I made when I told you I used to always just go, oh, I'm doing chest, I'm doing back, I'm getting little shoulders. And then I'd after thought be these lateral raises. Never once did I ever start a workout with like a press like that and see how strong I could be when I'm fresh going into one of these big lifts. That makes a big difference than it. After chest, after back, and after legs, not a lot of gas left to do a heavy push press or a heavy shoulder press when you've done those movements first. So prioritizing it early in the workout, I think is important.
- [31:47]
Sal DeStefano
So I think you could generally put shoulder exercises into three categories. Your presses, your raises, which include your lateral raises and your flies and your front raises and your rows, your, your standing rows, upright rows. That's kind of like covers the bases with your general shoulder exercises. Then you have your stabilization exercises in your warmup movements, like your shoulder dislocates with a stick. You could do external, you know, rotation exercises with cables or bands to work on the stabilizers. But those three categories that I said earlier, those are the major, the main major categories of exercise that you want to pick from. And you want to make sure you have at least one of those components or, you know, in one of your workouts, especially if you're training your shoulders as frequently as you should be, which is at least two or three days a week. The shoulders respond really well like most of the body, with a good two or three days a week of training, meaning take your total volume of workout and don't do it all in one workout. Divide it up over two or three workouts and you'll, you'll, you'll typically get the best results like that.
- [32:45]
Justin Andrews
I do want to caution the listener to making sure that if they don't incorporate all the Movements that we have already listed today that they have to think, because we didn't really talk about the rotator cuff and the importance of that. And obviously, if you do behind the neck presses, you do the kettlebell presses that Justin's talking about or Arnold presses, you're getting a nice rotational component in there. Or if you're doing something like the pull through, like I said, where there's a full range of motion stability component in there, you get a lot of good rotator cuff in there. But if you're somebody who just does the traditional shoulder press, lateral raise, rear fly type of deal, and you don't do a lot of rotational movement incorporated in there, you got to find a way to put that in there. Whether you isolate it by itself and do rotator cuff or you introduce some of these movements that we're talking about.
- [33:29]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah, I like wall circles as a primer. I like shoulder dislocates as a good primer. And then band, external rotation, load it, do some halos.
- [33:39]
Adam Schafer
You know, it doesn't have to be that heavy. Obviously it's not a major muscle group, but to be able to kind of add that stimulus and start strengthening their response a bit more, adding loads and option.
- [33:51]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah. Now, generally speaking, when you design, you put together your shoulder workout, you want to start with a press, just a big, heavy, gross motor movement. You could also start with the row if you're really good at them and you can get, you know, pretty strong. But usually it's a press. And then from there you move to the different raises and you typically want to work on hitting the side of the shoulder and the rear of the shoulder. Now, if you're more advanced and you've identified some imbalances in your shoulder like your rear delts, start your workout with the rear delts. That's. I did that for years to bring up my rear delts.
- [34:24]
Justin Andrews
I love shoulders. I actually love that as general advice, because it's rare I meet somebody that trains their shoulders that wants to develop their shoulders more, that doesn't have a more developed front shoulder than their rear shoulder. Almost always when I meet somebody who wants to develop their shoulders, who's already pressing and doing some of the movements and they're. They're neglecting their rear. And so getting that person to start with a rear delt exercise, I think is super beneficial. Although the general advice for, you know, the average person, I think would always be to do like a regular shoulder press first. But I think there's tremendous value in a lot of people who are Trying to develop to go rear delt.
- [35:03]
Sal DeStefano
Now, we talked about rep ranges earlier. I'll say this. The low rep ranges work really well for the presses. Everything else I would say is moderate to higher reps. I don't really see tons of value in low rep raises, lateral raises, or front raises. It becomes more of a back exercise. It's. It's really hard to make it a shoulder, like a straight shoulder exercise.
- [35:22]
Adam Schafer
And the leverage is just so far out there.
- [35:25]
Sal DeStefano
It is.
- [35:25]
Justin Andrews
I mean, I. I would caution people with. With loading shoulder stuff, because back to my original point about how easily the rest of the body can cheat the rep, it is one of those exercises where it can be deceiving. You're like, oh, I can do more weight than that. Because you can. Because all of a sudden, all the secondary muscles.
- [35:45]
Adam Schafer
Momentum.
- [35:45]
Justin Andrews
Yeah. And momentum kick in, and they help you out. And so you. You get this ego boost of, oh, you're doing double the weight of what you. You. You maybe you thought you should do or whatever. But it's really. Because all those other muscles are overcompensating and helping that loadout. Whereas if you're staying really strict and trying to isolate the shoulder as much as possible, it doesn't take very much load to get a really good workout. And so I would want you to have really, really good mechanics and control of all those movements we've talked about. First before, I really allowed you to start to really load that. That muscle because it's. It's one of the ones I think is very easy to. To cheat and to not. To not feel it.
- [36:24]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah. But, you know, along those lines, like, really trying to get strong on your overhead press. You're gonna get good shoulder development. Really trying to get strong on your lateral raise. You're gonna get, like, a bunch of trap development. Right. Really trying to get strong with your rear fly. You're gonna get a lot of rhomboid.
- [36:39]
Adam Schafer
Presses are gonna give you the most bank.
- [36:40]
Justin Andrews
You know, we did. We didn't even bring up. Which is one of my favorite exercises I can't believe we bring up is the Z press.
- [36:45]
Sal DeStefano
Oh, that's a great. That's a great press variation.
- [36:48]
Justin Andrews
And I love that as a starting press for a lot of people. Right. So if it's a good form check.
- [36:54]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah.
- [36:54]
Justin Andrews
If you're taking the advice right now, or I'm telling you, don't go crazy loaded until you think you have good form. You're like, okay, well, how do I know I'm getting really good form? Get good at the Z press. You get good at the Z press with the stabilization at the top of that right there. That's going to teach you to have good mechanics. You're going to get good stability from that and good form. You, you can't cheat it. Like Justin's saying, you'll fall over if you cheat that rep. So you get good at a Z press, you'll see tremendous carryover and all the other exercises.
- [37:20]
Sal DeStefano
Yeah. There's also good value in overhead holds. So when you do a press, you can even get a weight that you press up and then just hold above your head and try to be as straight as possible. Don't try to, you know, try to prevent yourself from overarching your back. Try to keep your head in between your arms. Really extend the shoulders, push like you're trying to push the weight up as high as you can and hold that for 10 to 15 seconds. I mean, isometrics in that position is such a good way to develop stabilization and muscle in the shoulders. Look, if you want a shoulder workout that's written all out for you because you listened to the episode and you said, look, what does this look like? What are the reps, sets, exercises? What does the programming look like? We have a shoulder mod. So this is a Maps workout program just for shoulders. In other words, take your total workout, take out the shoulder part of your workout, plug the mod in that we've written, and now you have an amazing shoulder workout. So our shoulder mod right now because of this episode is 50% off. You can find it at maps fitnessproducts.com and the code for the 50% off is shoulders. Shoulders will give you 50% off. And there you go. You got your full shoulder workout look. You can also find us all on social media. Justin is on Instagram @mindpumpjustin. Adam is on Instagram. I'm mindpump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at mindpumpsal.
- [38:37]
Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically, improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB super bundle@mindpumpmedia.com the RGB Super Bundle includes Maps Anabolic Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos. The RGB Super Bundle is like having Sal, Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB super bundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee and you can get it now. Plus other valuable free resources@mindpumpmedia.com if you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on itunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.
- [39:46]
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