What Are The Best Exercises To grow your Shoulders? - 3 exercises for aesthetic shoulders

This is for guys & girls, If you want more defined & aesthetic shoulders…

You don’t need to look anywhere else. I’m going to give you the 3 best exercises for strong & aesthetic shoulders… AND how many times per week to do them with how many sets & reps you should do them for. (CLICK HERE IF YOU RATHER WATCH ON YOUTUBE WITH VIDEO TUTORIALS)

First, we’ll cover the 3 muscles that make up the deltoid muscle (deltoid = shoulder muscles), so you can understand which exercises target each head of your shoulder.

Your deltoid is made up of 3 heads: The anterior, lateral, & posterior deltoid. Or you can refer to them as the front, middle, & rear delts as I am going to do for the remainder of this article b/c that’s what I say in person.

Now that you have a clear picture of the 3 shoulder muscles let’s dive right into how to train each head.

We’ll cover the rear delts first, as that’s the head most people are skipping & this is the head that gives your shoulder that nice round look when viewed from the side.

Exercise #1 - Reverse Pec deck -or- cable Face-pulls

“Ted, WTF, I thought this was the 3 best exercises for strong & aesthetic shoulders, why does exercise #1 have 2 exercises in it?”

Well, these two are equally as good, kind of. The reverse pec deck is going to have chest support so there will be very minimal chances of you being able to use momentum. But, if that machine is being used at your gym, or you just want to change it up, I wanted to ensure you had another option to take advantage of.

Reverse Pec Deck:

• Sit down with your chest/stomach supported on the pad of the pec deck machine.

• Then grab the arms with a neutral grip (gripping it like you’re holding a hammer) or a pronated grip (gripping it so that your palms face down to the floor)

• Keep a slight bend in your elbow as you push the arms of the machine back

• Hold this contraction for a quarter-to-half a second before going back to the starting position

Face-Pulls:

• Low to High:

  • Set the cable height to somewhere between your chest & shoulders.

  • Grip the rope with a neutral grip.

    • Example: Your thumbs are on the end of the rope (think about ski poles. How would you hold a ski pole? this is exactly the same way you’re going to hold the rope).

  • Slowly pull the rope toward the bridge of your nose

  • Squeeze Your shoulder blades down & together at the top of the movement before returning to the starting position.

  • A slight knee bend & backward lean is okay here if it makes it easier for you to balance.

• High to Low:

  • Set the cable height at your head level or higher.

  • Grip the rope with your pinkies now at the end of the rope rather than your thumbs.

    • Example: Lift both your arms up in front of you so that they’re parallel to the floor & your palms are facing the floor. Now imagine you’re holding a rope. This is exactly how you’re going to hold the rope while doing High-to-Low Face-Pulls.

  • Now slowly pull the rope towards your mouth/chin & squeeze your shoulder blades together before returning to your starting position.

Frequency: 2-3 times per week.

Sets & Reps: 3 sets for 12-20 reps, take the 3rd set to failure or do a 4th set to failure.

Rest: 60-90 seconds between each set.

Exercise #2 - Leaning Cable Lateral Raises (or DB lateral Raises)

Why cables over DB lateral raises? Because of the constant tension that the cables provide. with DBs you’ll lose tension at the bottom of the movement, with cables you’ll have constant tension for the entire movement.

Okay, but why are we leaning away? Because you also have 4 muscles that help support & stabilize your shoulder, these four muscles are called your rotator cuff. Leaning away decreases the involvement of the supraspinatus (1 of the rotator cuff muscles) & puts more emphasis on your middle delt.

Leaning Cable Lateral Raises

• Set the cable height to the lowest setting it goes to

• Pick up the cable handle with one hand

• Place your other hand on the cable machine & lean away

• Bring the cable up & out in a sweeping motion while keeping a slight bend in your elbow

• If you can try to have your elbow always higher than your hand.

This is a single-joint movement so progress will be slow, this is normal.

Frequency: 2-3 times per week.

Sets & Reps: 3 sets for 12-20 reps, take the 3rd set to failure or do a 4th set to failure.

Rest: 60-90 seconds between each set.

Exercise #3 - Seated Shoulder Press

Right now you’re probably thinking: “What about front delt DB raises?”

You’ll be stoked to hear that shoulder pressing, seated or standing, activates your front delts MORE THAN FRONT DELT DB RAISES. Crazy right? So unless you want to be a competitive bodybuilder you DO NOT have to do specific front delt exercises for strong & aesthetic shoulders. You do have to be doing horizontal & vertical pushing movements, like flat/incline bench press, or shoulder presses.

Seated DB Shoulder Press

• Sit down on a bench with back support

• It’s okay to have a slight arch in your lower back while performing this exercise

• Kick the DB’s up using your legs

• Then start pressing all the way up until the DB’s touch or almost touch

• Then return down to 90 degrees or lower

Frequency: 1-2 times per week. (If you do this twice per week change up the focus in both sessions…example: day 1: strength focus of 3 sets @ 3-8 reps…Day 2: hypertrophy focus of 3 sets @ 8-15 reps.)

Sets & Reps: 3-5 sets for 3-8 reps.

Rest: 2-3 minutes between each set.

What’s Next Week?

I hope this helps you! If you need help please feel free to DM me on Instagram @tedshredss or email me: tedgormanpt@gmail.com. I’d love to give you free tips/advice or help clear up anything we talked about today.

Next week’s article/video Is going to be another one of these types but for a different muscle group.

I’m putting up a story today on Instagram to let you guys decide what muscle group it is.

Go check it out to vote for the muscle group you want a video/article on!

Thank you for reading or watching!

I hope this has helped you and if it has…

Please let me know via email! tedgormanpt@gmail.com

Also, if you have any questions about what we talked about today…

Email me, I’d love to answer your questions and give you some advice 🤝

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Talk soon,

-Ted :)