Boulder Shoulders – The Big Shoulder Workout

Broad shoulders are one of the main attributes of an aesthetic and powerful looking physique. Big shoulders make your whole upper body look much more wide and, together with your lats, form the foundation of the ultimate V shape for your torso. To get to this point though, you will need the right exercises. As many people struggle to get those great shoulders, we give you the guide to boulder shoulders, with the big shoulder workout. Are you ready to grow your shoulders? Then read on!

The shoulders are usually trained with some presses, like the shoulder press and military press, but there are several other great exercises to work your shoulders for optimal growth. The key is combine presses with flyes and isometric movements and focus on all angles. This will not only boost your muscle mass, but also improve general shoulder health.

Before we get into the fun part of the actual exercises, let’s first look at the anatomy. This way you can understand the purpose and targeted muscles of each exercise better.

The shoulder consists of 3 sections of the deltoid muscle: the anterior, the posterior and the lateral set of fibres. The deltoid is a superficial muscle, meaning it is easily seen and thus better creates that well trained look if you take the time and effort to do the works.

The anterior (clavicular) deltoid is the part of the muscle at the front of the shoulder.

The posterior (scapular) deltoid part is the back part of the muscle.

The lateral (acromial) deltoid is the large middle section. This gives you the big boulder look.

There are many exercises that only target the middle section of the deltoids. If you want the best results and really big boulder shoulders, you will have to work all of these muscle fibre sets.

As with any part of your body, it is very important to do a proper warm-up before you start going beast mode. Shoulders are prone to injury if you don’t take this seriously. Believe me, I know from the past.

To prevent any pains, we have a few simple suggestions for you, which should be done before your shoulder workout, or actually any workout. It will create a bit of space within your shoulders, which reduces the chance of injury massively. These exercises can be done after your regular warm-up.

These are simple and quick exercises, which can be done by using a resistance band and a set of small weights of 2 – 5 pounds (1 – 2,5 kilos).

Attach the resistance band to a training rack or something else. It should be placed at the height of your elbow. Stand so that the resistance band is attached to your left side. Grab it with your right hand, while placing your arm in a 90 degree angle. Hold your hand in front of you. While keeping the 90 degree angle, move your hand to your right side and keep your elbow against your torso. This way, you will rotate your shoulder and create some space between the deltoid sections and rotator cuffs. Slowly move you hand back to the starting position, in front of you. Do this ten times and then switch hands and sides, so the resistance bands creates some tension during the exercise.

Next grab a weight in each hand. Move your upper arms to the side of your body, while pointing your forearms at a 90 degree angle to the front. Keep your upper arms in this position while you move your forearms move up to the sky. Again, feel the stretch this creates in your shoulders. Move your forearms back to straight in front of you and repeat this for 10 times.

We will show you’re the 5 best exercises to build those big, round shoulders that you have always dreamed of. Remember, this will take some time to accomplish and isn’t done overnight. Also make sure your diet is up to par and eat enought protein for your muscles to recover and grow. Last but not least, sleep well to optimize the results of your training sessions.

This exercise should be done while seated. Use a bench with a backrest.

One of the best exercises of the shoulder workout, the dumbbell shoulder press is an all-round compound exercise.

How to do this exercise:

Sit up straight on the bench. Keep a neutral spine and your elbows aligned with your hips. Hold the weights in each hand and move your elbows to the side. Your hands and the dumbbells should be slightly in front of your body. At the bottom of the movement, your elbows should be parallel with your shoulder joints. This means you don’t need to move your arms all the way down. Keep your deltoids under pressure during the whole exercise. Now press the dumbbells up while breathing out and keeping your wrists straight. Going down, keep your elbows in line with your hips and a little bit in front of your body as to keep the pressure off the joint.

Do this for 4 sets of 5-10 reps.

Alternative, you can do this exercise with a barbell. This allows you to push more weight as you will require less stabilizing compared to dumbbells. As you are seated, the bench itself can help you stabilize even more for greater weights. We like to use dumbbells as it uses more muscles in your body to provide the needed stability.

A great exercise for targeting the posterior delts, or back part of the deltoid. This can be done with dumbbells or a cable machine. We will use dumbbells to explain how it’s done.

How to do this exercise:

Hold a dumbbell in each hand. Stand with your feet at shoulder width and your knees slightly bent. Keep a neutral spine to keep your head facing down. Bend over slightly with your upper body, so that your body is almost parallel to the floor. Hold the dumbbells below and slightly in front of you and keep your elbows a bit bent. Pull your shoulder blades together and now move the weights up to the side, until they are parallel to the floor. In one controlled movement, you bring your arms back down until the weights almost touch each other. Do not drop your arms down, but be in control all the time and keep tension on your muscles.

Do this for 4 sets of 5-10 reps.

As the name suggests, this exercise is perfect for growing the anterior, or front part of the deltoid muscle.

How to do this exercise:

Stand straight with your feet close together and a dumbbell in each hand next to your body. Your palms are facing inwards.

Now instead of just moving each dumbbell simply up, you will need to engage your muscles. Try to “grab” the wall in front of you with your arm. This will put tension on your shoulder and back muscles way more and thus make the whole exercise much more effective in creating those boulder shoulders.

In an alternating way, raise each arm so that the dumbbell comes to about chin height. Then slowly lower each arm again until the dumbbell is next to your body. Remember to keep pressure on your muscles at all times and perform controlled movements.

Do this for 4 sets of 5-10 reps with each arm.

This exercise targets the rear delts and the lateral delts. It is a great exercise, but needs to be performed well; or you might risk injury to your rotator cuffs. According to this study, this exercise has the best lateral delt activation.

How to do this exercise:

Start by standing up straight, with your feet at shoulder width. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and keep your palms facing inwards. It is important to squeeze your shoulder blades together. They should be pinched together during the whole exercise.

While keeping your wrists straight, breathe out and bring the dumbbells up so that your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Your elbows are slightly bent during the movement. Your body and arms kind of make a T shape at its highest point. Now keep control over the movement at all times and don’t let your arms go down too quickly. Make it a nice and tight movement.

Do this for 4 sets of 5-10 reps.

This exercise uses heavy weights, so make sure you have these lying around. It is one of the simplest exercises, yet when done wrong, you can hurt your shoulders.

How to do this exercise:

Start the Dumbbell shrugs by lifting the dumbbells. Use your legs instead of your back as these are heavy.

Stand up straight with your feet close together and hold the dumbbells next to your body with your palms facing inwards. Like in the last exercise, squeeze your shoulder blades together and keep them pinched during the exercise. Keep your arms and wrists straight. All you need to do now is use your shoulders to elevate the weights up. So elevate your shoulders while breathing out and slowly lower the weights again to the starting position. This is one rep.

Do this for 4 sets of 5-10 reps.

We have discusses the 5 best exercises for the ultimate boulder shoulders workout. This is a complete and effective shoulder workout that will get you results pretty quickly.

There are more exercises and variants to the ones mentioned, and even though they can help build bigger shoulders, our 5 exercises form the basis of any decent shoulder workout. We will discuss these varieties in a future blog to give you the complete overview of what’s hot and what’s not.

Give these exercises a try and you will be surprised at how effective they are! Be sure to do a proper warm-up and build up your strength. Don’t go overboard straight away as shoulder injuries are pretty terrible. So start using low weight dumbbells at first and once you master the exercises, slowly turn the heat up!

If you have any questions on creating boulder shoulders, leave a comment below. We also like to hear your suggestions to other exercises. Which shoulder exercises do you do?