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What principles should you follow when training your shoulders? What are the most effective deltoid exercises?

Broad shoulders are one of the main manifestations of masculinity and strength, causing respect from other men and trembling in the chest of women. Despite this, many athletes do not pay enough attention to this muscle group. This is not only due to reluctance. It’s just that beginners, and sometimes even experienced athletes, have no idea how to make their shoulders wider.

To expand your shoulder muscles, consider the following recommendations:

1. Increase the weight regularly when performing barbell presses. With this approach, you can increase the overall strength of the deltas and increase their volume.
2. Choose only the weight that will allow you to complete the approach with strict adherence to technique. If other muscles begin to engage in work, then use dumbbells with a lighter weight.
3. Achieve maximum burning in the main muscle group while performing swings. This parameter is one of the main ones when working the deltoid muscles.
4. When doing presses, try not to fully extend your arms at the elbow joints. At the same time, make sure that your shoulders are as tense as possible. In this case, you can achieve the greatest efficiency.
5. When doing presses and swings, try to work with a slight delay in the top position. This is necessary to further reduce muscle fibers.
6. The shoulders are a small muscle group, which allows them to recover much faster. Therefore, the rest between sets should not be more than 45 seconds. Monitor this parameter using a stopwatch and try not to exceed the permissible time.
7. While working on your shoulders, also work on reducing your waist. This approach will make your shoulders visually wider. At the same time, do not pump up your trapezoids, which visually diminish your achievements.
8. The deltoid muscles are not afraid of overtraining (even with high activity levels).
9. To achieve great results, try to do more repetitions. For example, the optimal number of repetitions for the deltoid muscles is 15-20.
10. The best combination is to train your back and shoulders in one day. If possible, it is better to work the deltoid muscles separately.
11. The training process should begin with bent over swings. In this case, the muscle group is prepared for more serious work without excessive fatigue.
12. Many beginners are afraid to overload their shoulder muscles with too many exercises. In fact, this group is not afraid of this. The more voluminous and intense the workout, the better.
13. Don't work your deltoids before training your chest. Otherwise, working weights will be significantly reduced.

Exercises to help

Since we’re already talking about how to make your shoulders wider, let’s look at a number of effective exercises. These include:

Results

Developing beautiful shoulders is not as difficult as it might seem. Here it is important to take into account a number of features of the deltoid muscles - the ability to quickly recover, love for a large number of repetitions and correct technique. If you do everything correctly, the result will amaze not only you, but also everyone you know (primarily the fair sex).

How to increase shoulder width? This question interests not only men, but also women, because broad shoulders visually balance the figure and make it more harmonious. This especially applies to girls with a pear-shaped figure, where the hips are wider than the shoulders. For classes you will need a horizontal bar (bar), dumbbells or a bar, and a fitness mat. The most famous exercise is pull-ups on the horizontal bar. You need to place your arms wider than your shoulders and pull yourself up so that the horizontal bar is behind your head. Many find this exercise difficult, so you can make it easier if you pull yourself up and stand with one foot on a stool. It is enough to repeat the exercise 10-15 times.

Shoulder exercises can be performed with dumbbells or a barbell. The classic exercise is the bench press. You need to lie on your back, on a mat or on an incline bench, take a wide-grip bar or dumbbells and perform a press. Repeat 10-15 times. It is important not to lift your back from the mat or bench and not allow your lower back to sag. Another great exercise is raising straight arms to the sides. To do this, you need to stand straight, legs shoulder-width apart, feet parallel, arms with dumbbells lowered in front of you. As you exhale, you need to spread your arms to the sides no higher than shoulder level, and while inhaling, bring them back down. You need to repeat 12-15 times, and then make it more difficult: at the top point of the lift, linger for a few seconds, making mini-jerks of small amplitude.

An exercise simulating boxer punches is performed as follows. You need to stand straight, arms bent at the elbows at waist level (boxer's stance). As you exhale, straighten your arm as if making a blow, and while inhaling, return it back. The movement goes from the back to the arm, while the whole body works. The exercise must be performed 20-30 times with each hand. Many people don’t know how to pump up their shoulders with push-ups. In fact, push-ups are simple and anyone can do them. A special push-up for the shoulders looks like this: you need to lean on your hands, lift your pelvis up, and stretch your legs. The body should form an inverted V, with the palms facing each other. In this position, perform push-ups 20 times.

How to make your shoulders wider through exercise? There are many sports disciplines that perfectly develop shoulder muscles. First of all, swimming, which develops not only the shoulder muscles, but also forms a harmonious body as a whole. Rowing develops the muscles of the back and chest. It is also worth paying attention to tennis, boxing, cross-country skiing and martial arts. Even amateur sports will bring newness to training. So, shoulder exercises are quite varied, and absolutely everyone can choose the most suitable ones for themselves, based on the available equipment and physical fitness.

Thus, shoulder exercises are quite varied, and absolutely everyone can choose the most suitable ones for themselves, based on the available equipment and physical fitness.

- This is a very effective technique for increasing not only the width of the chest, but also the potential for increasing the size of the pectoral muscles. It is impossible to build bulky pectoral muscles on a small bone structure, but the bone structure can be increased. There are disputes about whether it is possible to increase the width of the chest after 25 years, when the bone growth zones are already closed, scientists say no, practitioners say yes. If you are already well over 25 and you do not take growth hormone, then you most likely will not be able to increase the size of your bones, but you will be able to stretch the muscles of the chest, as well as create maximum tension on the bones, increasing their mobility, as a result of which the chest will look more massive and it will actually become a little wider. However, it makes sense for young people whose bones are still growing in length to specialize over time in expanding the chest.

If you are under 20 years old, then this is simply the ideal time to work on the width of your bones. At the age of 20 to 25, it is also still worth paying attention to this particular issue. Why? Because then you will no longer be able to do this, or the effectiveness of such training will be significantly lower. You will always have time to build muscles; after all, maximum hypertrophy of muscle fibers can be achieved in 2-3 years, after which you need to start working on muscle hyperplasia , then by systemic adaptation, and only after that you can still gain 5 kilograms of muscle due to hypertrophy over the next few years. But, as a rule, it is rare that someone even reaches the development of maximum hypertrophy of muscle fibers and already looks like a “jock.” In any case, you can build up muscles, then “deflate”, build them up again, and you will have a wide chest for the rest of your life. Don't miss the opportunity - start expanding your chest!

Exercises to expand the chest

Breathing squats with pullover – this is one of the most effective exercises, or rather, it is a superset that consists of breathing squats and a pullover. You shouldn’t chase weight in these exercises; on the contrary, you need to select the weight so that you feel comfortable performing the exercises. The pullover is performed in the usual style, but for 15-20 repetitions, in order to better stretch the chest, it is also recommended to breathe with effort, but since you will first perform squats, you will still have to breathe deeply. Of course, you can simply catch your breath and breathe quickly, but this should not be done at all in any case, even if you are not engaged in expanding the chest, and in all exercises to expand the skeleton, breathing, in general, is the most important part of the training complex, so knocking down It is not allowed under any circumstances!

Breathing squats are performed with a light weight for 20-30 times, using a special breathing technique. There are quite a few variations of these squats, which are essentially variations of the same technique. For the first 5 repetitions, you take 1 deep breath and exhale between each repetition, that is, you squat while inhaling, stand up while exhaling, and between repetitions, standing with a barbell on your shoulders, take a deep breath and exhale forcefully. For the next 5 repetitions, you do the same thing, but between repetitions you inhale and exhale 2 times, the next five 3 times, then 4, then 5 and finally 6 times. You can go up to three times, increasing the number of inhalations and exhalations every tenth repetition, but the essence, as you see, does not change. After you finish a set of squats, you run to do a pullover. You cannot rest between squats and pullovers, but rest between supersets is 1 minute.

– a very important exercise for expanding the chest. It is not included in the training complex, or rather, it can be performed between approaches, it can be performed at home, in the morning, in the evening, at any time of the day. The exercise does not require any special equipment, just a wall or, even better, a corner. You rest your hands on the wall, spread your legs wider than your shoulders and move them back so that by arching your back in the lower back and moving your gluteal muscles back, you feel comfortable. You need to straighten your chest, relax your abdominal muscles, and, as if holding onto a wall or corner, stretch down, stretching your chest. The knees, of course, are slightly bent and, as you tighten your chest, you bend them a little more. In order to effectively work the chest during the raider row, it is necessary to develop muscle feeling , and this exercise can be performed not only to expand the chest bones, but also during any training complex.

Squats with a barbell on the front and holding the breath with squats in a snatch grip is a complex superset consisting of two heavy exercises. The point of the exercise is that it will make you gasp, as a result of which, as the body adapts, it will need a wider chest so that it can fit more air into the lungs. The essence of the complex is that while performing squats with a barbell on the chest, the athlete holds his breath. That is, inhale, then on one exhalation 3 repetitions, inhale again and again on one exhalation 3 repetitions. A total of 12-15 repetitions of squats must be performed. After this, you immediately do squats with a snatch grip - these are squats with a barbell overhead. The technique is not complicated, you simply hold the barbell with straight arms, due to which the chest stretches well at the lowest point. You should breathe normally, but deeply. Rest between sets for 1 minute.

"Sun" with a stick This is a chest stretching exercise. It is not necessary to perform it with a stick; you can use a bar or elastic bands. Beginners are recommended to use elastic bands, since a beginner will not be able to perform this exercise with either a bar or a stick. Technically there is nothing complicated! The athlete picks up a stick, choosing a grip width that he can handle, and then turns his hands behind his back. Inhale while twisting your arms behind your back, exhale while returning your arms to the starting position.

Breathing presses - These are exercises that are performed with breath holding in the same type that is used during front squats with a breath hold. The athlete inhales, performs 3 repetitions on one exhalation, then inhales again. If you are performing a bench press or an incline press, you should grab the bar with a wide grip to create tension in your chest. In the same way, you can perform wiring, combining it with presses. You can simply do a wide-grip bench press and then a breathing exercise. Also optional exercises are wide-grip pull-ups and standing overhead barbell presses.

Chest expansion complex

To achieve the effect of such exercises, it is not enough to simply do exercises once a week to expand the chest bones. You should devote time to this complex, allocating a separate training program for it. You can do chest expansion every other day, and on rest days you can actively stretch the chest with Rader rows and “sun exercises” with a stick. But growth is a physical expression of the body's adaptation to stress, so the body needs time to recover and achieve super compensation . When it comes to the growth of muscle structures, circuit training is suitable for beginners and the body has time to recover, then the athlete moves on to a split, training each muscle once a week, that is, giving the body a rest per week to restore muscle structures. As an athlete becomes more experienced, he begins to use microperiodization to give the body enough time to recover specific muscle fibers .

In the case of chest expansion, it is even more difficult, since this adaptation requires more resources and time. That is why chest width should be developed in periods, that is, using the principle of macroperiodization. The system looks like this: the athlete spends a month expanding the chest, then rests for a month, training according to the usual scheme, after which he again moves on to expanding the skeleton, but for a month and a half, then rest again, also for one month, and finally 2 months workouts to expand the sternum, which give the greatest impact. If you are afraid of losing muscle mass during this time, then you will lose it, but it is worth it! All the advantages of the training have already been described above, and if you want to achieve maximum results in muscle growth, then you should be patient, the patience of a hunter, and prepare yourself for hunting truly big game!

Training split for chest expansion

First training
Superset (2 exercises):
Breathing squats– 7 sets of 20-30 repetitions
Pullover – 7 sets of 15-20 reps
Breathing presses
Wide grip pull-ups– 5-7 sets of maximum repetitions

Day of rest– Raider thrust and “sun”

Second training
Superset (2 exercises):
Wide grip press– 7 sets of 15 reps
Breathing wiring– 7 sets of 15 reps
Superset (2 exercises):
Squats with a barbell on the chest and holding your breath
Overhead squats– 5 sets of 12 reps
Standing overhead barbell press– 7 sets of 20 reps

Notes* During training, between sets, you can perform Rader rows, use a light weight on the bar so that you can complete the program, and progress by increasing the intensity and number of repetitions. After the second workout, you rest for one day and repeat the program from the beginning. Don't miss your chance to expand your chest!

Beautiful broad shoulders are the pride of any man. In order for the figure to be in the form of the coveted inverted triangle, it is necessary to correctly load the shoulder muscles. Read more about this.

Exercises for the shoulders, like for other muscle groups, are divided into basic and isolating. When performing basic exercises, the shoulders are pumped as a whole, a load is added to the trapezius, while isolating exercises pump up individual bundles of the deltoid muscles. To obtain the best form, it is important to combine these loads.

3 basic shoulder exercises:

1. Barbell overhead press on a Smith machine

Perform the barbell overhead press in a Smith machine. This is much safer than free weights, and this machine will ensure smooth and correct arm movements. All that remains is to control the movement of your elbows. The elbows should be strictly in a straight line in the plane of the body. Your back should be kept straight, so place the back of the bench strictly perpendicular to the floor. Breathing is very important for proper performance in the gym. You need to exhale at the top of the press. If you start exhaling simultaneously with the start of the exercise, then in the peak part of it, you will not have enough oxygen. Accordingly, you will not be able to squeeze more weight. With this exercise, you work the middle deltoids, as well as the trapezius, triceps, and serratus anterior. When working to failure, ask someone from the audience to back you up - this way you will perform the approach better and safer.

2. Seated dumbbell press

The dumbbell press trains the front, middle, and very slightly rear deltoids. Hands with dumbbells go in one straight line, elbows strictly to the side along the body. A common mistake is to pull the elbows to the sides and bend the lower back. Keep your shoulders level, without raising or lowering them. Take only those weights that you can squeeze without breaking your technique.

3. Barbell row to the chin

The barbell is taken with an overhand grip and pulled to the chin, while the elbows look to the side and up. For best results, try to raise your elbows higher than the barbell. The load will go mainly to the middle deltoid muscles, then to the anterior and trapezius muscles. Perform barbell rows to the chin extremely slowly. Jerking can cause unwanted injuries. The choice of grip (narrow, wide) is a controversial issue. It is believed that a wide grip is less dangerous for the shoulder joints.

3 isolated shoulder exercises:

1. Standing dumbbell lateral raises

The exercise is highly technical and requires proper technique. If the technique is incorrect, the dumbbell lift ceases to be an isolated load, because you turn on the trapezoid, and when swinging your body, you also use your legs. Therefore, it is important to choose the right weight that you can lift using only your deltoids.

The shoulders should be lowered, the elbows reaching parallel to the shoulders. If they go higher, the shoulders will automatically rise and the trapezoid will start working. The little fingers should be at the top point.

To better understand the technique, beginners have such an association as “spill water from a mug.” Imagine that you are holding a glass of water in your hand, you need to spread your arms to the sides so that every drop is poured out of it.

This dumbbell lift can also be done with a block. Take 2 handles on different sides of the lower block and perform the exercise.

2. Reverse flyes in the Peck-Deck simulator

When performing reverse flyes, there is an isolated load on the rear deltas, and this exercise also engages the muscles of the upper back.

Before starting your workout, adjust the Peck-Deck, set the handles to shoulder width, and raise the seat to such a height that your arms are in line with the floor when sitting on the machine. Move your arms as far back as possible, squeezing your shoulder blades together. As you exhale, bring your arms together. Your elbows should be behind your back; if this cannot be done, reduce the weight. The back should be stiff and straight. Slouching and swaying your body will lead to loss of efficiency and injury.

3. Raising your arms with dumbbells in front of you

Lifting dumbbells in front of you will perfectly work your front deltoids.

This exercise is performed standing, arms with dumbbells lowered until they touch the thigh. As you inhale, swing your arms with almost straight arms. The position of the dumbbells can be:

1) back of the hand up;

2) palms facing each other.

You can raise your arms alternately or simultaneously. Keep an equal distance between your hands! It should either be equal to shoulder width or slightly narrower. Do not use your lower back and legs to help push the weight of the dumbbells out. Also, do not lift the dumbbells above 45 degrees from parallel to the floor, otherwise the trapezius and serratus anterior muscles will become involved.

Don't rush to increase weight. In order for there to be a concentrated load, do not lower your hands to your hips, keep them in front of you and work in the upper part of the amplitude.

In order for you to better understand how to perform the exercises, we asked the famous Russian bodybuilder Alexander Fedorov to do a shoulder workout.

Shoulder training with Alexander Fedorov

Prepared by: Anastasia Kuzheleva

Hello! Today there will be an article on a sports topic. The notorious V-shape incredibly attracts the attention of the fair sex! It's not surprising that bodybuilders are looking for ways to make their shoulders wider and their waists narrower. True, nature has not endowed everyone with such “gifts,” but this is not a reason to give up.

How to make your shoulders wider

In order to make your silhouette incredibly wide at the shoulder girdle, there are two ways:

1. Pump up the deltoid muscles to the maximum possible size.
2. Widen the bones of the shoulders and chest.

How to pump up deltoids

So, let's start in order. We discussed in great detail how to pump up deltoids (shoulders) in the article. Read it, it's full of useful information.

Now I will give some more interesting tips. First, it must be noted that delta- a relatively small muscle, and besides, it receives a considerable load when doing chest presses and back rows, so if you simply increase the weights, you risk not only not growing your shoulders, but also seriously overtraining them, or not God forbid, injure.

Let's not forget that shoulder– this is the most mobile joint in our body, and we need to be very careful with it.

Here, as nowhere else, when selecting a set of exercises, you must rely on MUSCLE FEELING, i.e. so that you can feel the work of the deltoid muscles at each point of the exercises. By the way, I wrote about muscle feeling. Refresh your memory.

The deltoids should be tense at every point of movement in the exercises. They should not “switch off” at the bottom or top of the movement. At the top point, I advise you to hold for 1-2 seconds to give your deltoids additional load. Work with relatively light weights and try to induce.

The main mistake is that beginners focus on working the middle and anterior deltoid muscles, while completely ignoring the rear ones. The rear delts also give great shoulder volume, so don't make that mistake.

Now let's deal with the second point. Widening your shoulder bones is not so difficult if you are not yet 23-24 years old, because... further bone growth virtually stops and expansion may become almost impossible.

The best exercise to broaden your shoulders is pull-ups very wide grip in a large number of approaches.

Widening the bones of the shoulders is a fairly advisable exercise, because... if you give up sports and lose the “meat” that you have built up, then your frame (skeleton) will still remain wide.

Even if you are over 24 years old, you still need to do pull-ups, because... the effect will still be there, although perhaps not as severe as before this age.

How to expand the chest

To expand the chest, you need to perform the following exercises:

1. "Breathing" squats.
2. Pullover.

The specifics are as follows. Breathing squats are performed with a lighter weight that you can do 20-25 repetitions with, and they are done with a full inhalation. This allows your lungs to hyperventilate well during heavy work, thereby expanding the sternum.

Breathing squats are almost no different from regular squats, except that at the end of each repetition (at the top), you take a certain number of as deep breaths as possible, after which you inhale slowly while moving to the bottom and exhale slowly as you rise.

Every 5-10 repetitions, take not one, but 3-5 deep breaths, after which you continue to perform the exercise.

Let's look at this in more detail:

1-10 repetition– 3 exhalations and inhalations at the top point, before each repetition.

11-20 repetition– 4 exhalations and inhalations at the top point, before each repetition.

20-25 repetition– 5 exhalations and inhalations at the top point, before each repetition.

After you finish the squat approach, immediately (!) go to the pullover approach. This will further stretch your chest.

How is a pullover done?

The technique of performing the exercise is quite simple.

• We select a dumbbell by weight that you will be able to lift 10-15 times.
• We sit across a horizontal bench and place a dumbbell on our knee.
• Then we go down so that your shoulder blades lie on the bench, and your pelvis is in weight, your legs rest at an angle of 90 degrees on the floor. You are in a horizontal position, leaning on the bench with two shoulder blades.
• Now we take the dumbbell so that your two thumbs wrap around the bar and your two palms rest on one of the edges of the dumbbell.
• Raise your arms vertically, bending your elbows slightly.
• We lower the dumbbell behind the head, lower the pelvis down and create a maximum stretch of the chest.
• Now we return to the starting position. The dumbbell is vertical at the top, and the pelvis again “hangs” parallel to the floor.

As you can see, nothing complicated. Those. you perform: Approach for breathing squats + pullover... Rest 1-1.5 minutes... Approach for breathing squats + pullover...

Do 2-3 such pairs (supersets) at the end of the workout, this will be enough.

Such expanding training is used in series of several cycles with a break between them of one month. Cycle duration increases:

• 1 cycle: 4-5 weeks;
• 2nd cycle: 5-6 weeks;
• 3 cycle: 6-8 weeks;

You will notice the effect of expanding the shoulder girdle after the second cycle. It is advisable to perform “breathing” squats after training your legs.

I hope that I was able to explain to you in sufficient detail how to make your shoulders wider.

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With respect and best wishes,!