Shouldering the Weight

Shoulder exercises are important for the overall strength of our upper bodies however are we pushing it too far with exercises for the palpable muscles and perhaps neglecting others such as the rotator cuff.

Posture and Exercise

Before continuing on with todays topic of Shoulders, just take a look at your own posture with the following questions in mind. Are you rounded at the shoulders? Is your upper back hunched over or curved forward? and Is your head stooped forward of the rest of your body? If you answered yes to all of these you maybe overtraining the muscles in the front part of your upper body namely your anterior deltoids and pectoral muscles at the expense of the upper back muscles, which also includes the posterior deltoids, the back of the shoulders.

These questions have further significance for those of you that spend a large proportion of your day working hunched over a computer, there is a real need for you to even up the affect this has on your posture by doing a balance of both front and back exercises. What happens is that your chest and front shoulders become tight giving you that hunched over and stiff look.  You only need to look around the gym and you will notice the people who overdo the front exercises, they are generally hunched over and you may think they walk around like that purposely to look tough but most of the time in reality they haven’t got it right, exercising  too much front and not enough back to create a balance.

With the above in mind the most important consideration when working the shoulder is to work all parts of the shoulder evenly. Moreover the shoulder joint is vulnerable as it’s a ball and socket joint where it’s floating, held in place by ligaments and tendons which inherently makes it more at risk for injury. The shoulder joint however despite it’s vulnerabilities is important as it assists in the use of many muscles. We all seem to know about the deltoid muscle in particular the anterior (front), medial (middle) the posterior (back) their main function is to help lift the arm up to the front, to the side, to the back and to press overhead. However while we have all heard of the rotator cuff, the group of muscles that stabilises the shoulder we tend to neglect it in our exercise programs.

All the shoulder muscles are relatively small particularly the rotator cuff group so there is no need to go heavy, you should go light to avert the risk of injury.  Let’s take a look at some exercises for the deltoid muscle and the rotator cuff and focus in on some important considerations for both.

Some Shoulder Exercises

One of my favourite exercises for the deltoids (mainly front) is the lateral dumbbell raise, this is performed by standing upright with your feet hip to shoulder width apart and your knees slightly bent. Hold the dumbbells in front of you, knuckles facing to the side. Turn your core muscles on and with elbows slightly bent raise both dumbbells out to your side to just above shoulder height, pause for a second then control/lower the dumbbells slowly back to the starting position.

Front dumbbell raises which also work the deltoids can be performed in combination with lateral raises, that is do one lateral raise come back in then do a front raise. To perform the front raise on its own, stand with your feet hip to shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent holding the weights in an overhand grip. With a slight bend in your elbow and your back straight raise one or both dumbbells together slowly to the front up to just above shoulder height. Lower the dumbbells slowly to the start position.

The key points to remember are that you should err on the conservative side when it comes to the amount of weight you are going to lift as the weight is a long way from the working joint therefore a heavy weight will increase your risk of injury. Also as is the case with most standing exercises it’s important that you keep your back straight don’t lean back and swing the dumbbell up, as not only is this not giving you muscle focus it is putting you at risk of lower back injury. If you find yourself swinging then lower the weight and or perform the movement with your back against a wall.

As I mentioned earlier to help avoid the hunched over or stooped shoulder posture you also need to work the back of the shoulder which brings us to exercises for the posterior (back) deltoids. My favourite here is the prone rear delt row, performed on an incline bench.  I prefer this to a standing rear lateral raise for example as it immobilises other parts of your body allowing for more focus on the rear deltoid. To perform this lie face down on an incline bench holding the dumbbells with arms straight down toward the floor from the shoulders with your palms facing in. Lift the dumbbells up to shoulder height keeping your arms straight (slight bend in elbow is fine). Lower the dumbbells back down to the start position.

The key points for this exercise is to keep the movement isolated to the upper part of your back working the rear deltoid muscles and the rhomboids, avoid moving too much to engage the larger muscles in your back. Once again don’t sacrifice form for heavy weights, keep the weight down to a level were you are both working the muscle and achieving good form, don’t forget also that because of the structure of the shoulder the heavier the weight the more difficult it is to keep the shoulder stable, which in turn could lead to injury.  Remember also the reason that they have mirrors in a gym is to check your form, always use them to track and maintain proper alignment in all the exercises you do.

Rotator Cuff Muscles

The rotator cuff is extremely important in the strengthening of your shoulder joint, whilst the exercises I’ve mentioned above are good for building muscles and helping you look good on the outside the rotator cuff exercises help strengthen tendons and ligaments which are equally as important even though they are impalpable. The Rotator cuff muscles are  the Supraspinatus, Infraspinatus, Teres Major, Teres Minor and Subscapularis, they are best trained with external and internal rotation.  If you are in a gym both the internal and external rotations can be done on a cable machine.

For Internal Cable Rotations stand side-on to a pulley which is at about waist height. Bend your elbow to 90 degrees and turn your arm out away from your body, with your shoulders, hips and feet in line pull the handle slowly towards the middle of your body, bring the arm across as far as is comfortable then slowly return to the start position. Do the required number of reps then repeat for your other arm. Some key points to remember for performing this exercise are, make sure that you have a secure grip on the handle, keep your head up and eyes looking forwards, keep your elbow in to your body, maintain a right angle at your elbow and keep your legs firmly braced throughout the movement. This exercise is to develop your rotator cuff muscles as well as your pectorals, you see a lot of people doing it for rehabilitation for a rotator cuff injury however put it into your program to avert such situations.

For External Cable Rotations again stand side-on to a pulley at about waist height, reach over and grip the handle with your knuckles facing toward the pulley. Keeping your shoulders, hips and feet in line, your elbow bent and close into your body move your arm across and away from your body until you reach your full range of movement, then slowly return to the start position. Do the required number of reps then repeat for your other arm.  Some key points to remember for performing this exercise are, hold the cable frame or purpose built frame handle for support if required, keep your head up and eyes looking forwards, keep your shoulders level and wrap your thumb around the handle.

One other important reason why we shouldn’t neglect training our shoulders is that these muscles are assistors in many upper body exercises particularly ones working the chest, as such however it is paramount that you perform your shoulder exercises after you have done your chest and back otherwise they will become too fatigued, hampering your performance for the bigger muscles.

I personally like to include shoulder exercises at the end of a chest and biceps routine or sometimes in a superset with say a decline bench press.  One chest/arms workout that I use in a 3-day hypertrophy split and includes some shoulders is as follows:

Try it and let me know how you get on, the other 2 days of this split are a legs / core day and a back / triceps / rear delt day.  The 3 day hypertrophy split will ensure that you are exercising all muscles groups evenly helping you avert the rounded shoulders and hunched back conundrum we mentioned earlier.  I almost forgot the weight for each of the exercises in the above program should be around 75% of your 1RM (one rep maximum) or a weight that allows you to do the required number of reps, if you are doing it easy go up to the next increment and visa-versa if too heavy.

Also in summary to my opening remark that sometimes we spend far too much time worrying about the muscles you can see and not enough on the deep muscle such as the rotator cuff, you need to work these to help stabilise the joint which will in turn enhance your performance of palpable shoulder muscles such as the deltoid and all the muscles that they assist in many upper body exercises.

Zol

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