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Evidence Based Shoulder Training
Let's face it, if you want to look "jacked" big shoulders are a priority muscle.
Mark Christie
September 30, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 14 minutes
Let’s face it, big shoulders have never been out of fashion. They add width to your appearance and help you fill out your shirts.
Everyone has their opinions on the best way to train them, but today we’ll take an evidence based approach, covering optimal training practices to help you grow and strengthen them, along with keeping them healthy and reduce injury risk.
We will focus on your deltoid muscles in this issue and just touch base on your rotator cuff for context, however we will have a deep dive into your rotator cuff in another issue (It will make this article too long and you’ll probably get bored).
Disclaimer: Unfortunately at the end of this article, I can’t promise you’ll be required to walk through a door sideways.
IN THIS ISSUE:
GETTING STARTED
The Main Players - Delts and Your Rotator Cuff
The Deltoids, have three heads to them:
Lateral Deltoid (Side)
Anterior Deltoid (Front)
Posterior Deltoid (Rear)
The deltoids are prime movers in pressing movements, including the bench press, dips, push ups and overhead pressing, while helping stabilize your upper limb and the weight.
They are also key shoulder stabilizers, for example one function is that they prevent inferior glenohumeral joint displacement while adducted and bearing a heavy load, take performing a deadlift for example.
In fact, a recent study by (Wang et al., 2024) found that with less deltoid muscle mass and strength, the stress placed on the rotator cuffs increases, which we don’t want.
For most, their Anterior deltoid is far more developed than their Lateral or Posterior. This can lead to poor posture and increased injury risk, shoulder impingement syndrome being very common. We will circle back to this later in the article.
The Rotator Cuff, which is actually a group of 4 muscles:
Supraspinatus - Works in tandem with your deltoid muscle to stabilize the shoulder joint as you lift your arm
Infraspinatus - Located at the back side of your shoulder that performs external rotation of the shoulder joint
Teres Minor - Works with the infraspinatus muscle to also perform external rotation of the shoulder joint
Subscapularis - Located at the front side of your shoulder, and performs internal rotation of the shoulder joint
These 4 muscles work alongside your deltoids to stabilize your shoulder joint and movement of your arms. They also stabilize the glenohumeral joint when the deltoid abducts the arm past 15°.
Now these don’t contribute much to the size and appearance of your shoulders, they will however contribute to you remaining injury free and strengthening your shoulder joint. The longer we can train injury free, the more progress we can make!
Again, stay tuned as we will cover this in depth in the future, to help you bulletproof your shoulders!
RE-THINK
Ease Off Front Deltoid Training.
Let’s get the elephant in the room out the way first, the anterior deltoid (front delt).
Now you may be an outlier, you may actually be the 1 out of 10,000 people who have underdeveloped front delts, in which case ignore this and skip to the next section.
As I stated above, most people have overdeveloped front delts compared to the rest of their shoulders. The reason this happens is that your front delts are worked hard through almost all pressing movements, ie, bench, overhead press, dips, push ups. Then most add front raises in with only 3 sets of side lateral raises for their side delts and maybe a reverse pec dec at the end if they aren’t feeling super lazy.
A study of this was carried out by (Campos et al., 2020) which looked at muscle activity of the 3 deltoid heads through EMG (electromyography) when performing 4 common exercises, the bench press, dumbbell fly, barbell shoulder press and dumbbell lateral raise.
As you can see from figure’s A&B below, the anterior (front) delt is active substantially more than your lateral (middle) delt in 3 out of the 4 movements.
Figure A: Anterior (Front) Delt activation.
Figure B: Lateral (Middle) Delt activation.
Figure A: From (Campos et al., 2020)
Figure B: From (Campos et al., 2020)
To save putting too many images in, they are also substantially more active than the posterior (rear) delt. Just take my word on the results.
This poses several problems, one is that most don’t just do bench, fly and shoulder press. They will also include incline press variations, dips and some front raises in there for extra sauce on top. Incline pressing involves more front delt work than flat pressing and the front raises are just over kill.
This leads to overtraining your front delts and undertraining your side and rear delts. Which in turn can lead to what is called “Shoulder Impingement Syndrome”.
Shoulder impingement syndrome, aka, Rotator cuff tendonitis, aka Subacromial impingement, is a very common cause of shoulder pain and is due to structural narrowing of the subacromial space.
Shoulder impingement accounts for 44 to 65% of shoulder complaints during physician visits
Overtraining your front delts in relation to the others can lead to poor posture and poor muscle imbalance which narrows the space for your rotator cuff muscle to run through, causing friction on the muscles rubbing off bone leading to pain and inflammation.
CANNONBALL!!!!
Your Lateral Deltoid
Now the two deltoid muscles 9,999 out of 10,000 of us want to / need to improve.
The Lateral Raise
Side delt growth adds width to your frame. We have all done the classic dumbbell lateral raise, and it works. It may not be scientifically optimal, but bodybuilders for years have used this movement to great success, creating huge side delts.
The main benefit to this movement is that it’s quick to set up, requires little equipment, easy learning curve and can be done pretty much anywhere.
To optimally perform these:
Don’t cheat and use momentum, this takes away from the side delts work.
Keep a slight bend in your elbow (not locked) to take stress away from your joint.
Your elbow should lead, what I mean by this is that your hand should be in line or slightly below parallel with your elbow.
The only problem with using dumbbells is the resistance curve, there is little to no tension on the side delt at the bottom of the movement and it doesn’t allow for a good stretch / lengthened position in the muscle.
Cables are a good solution to this, follow the same optimal guidelines as above to get the most out of them using a handle or wrist cuff. You can perform these in a variety of ways, single arm behind or infront of the body, leaning or lying on a bench.
No one is impressed with your lateral raise weight, no one really cares, what should matter is correct form, execution and hypertrophy outcomes. Save the heavy weight for overhead pressing, benching and dips.
Pro Tip: Set the cable height at just around hand height as you stand instead of at the bottom, this will allow for a greater stretch of the side delt.
The next main exercise selection I would do for side delts is the Upright Row. Now commonly these are performed poorly. Typically you will see someone with there hands very close together.
You would be better off setting your hands shoulder width or slightly narrower/ wider depending on individual biomechanicals, but generally for most, shoulder width is a good starting point.
A study by (McAllister et al., 2013) had 16 weight trained males perform different grip width upright rows and looked at deltoid and trapezius muscle activity using EMG readings. Their findings suggest that using a wider grip trained the deltoids and traps more effectively.
Not only does it benefit delt growth using a wider grip, it also puts less strain on your wrist joint, making some weird and not so great angles as you pull it higher.
You can perform these using a barbell, cable or dumbbells.
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BEHIND YOU
Your Posterior Deltoid
Ahh, the forgotten deltoid that is usually placed at the very end each time or totally forgotten about.
We can’t forget about this small muscle though, properly strengthening and growing your rear deltoid can help any muscular imbalances within the shoulder.
The truth is your posterior (rear) delt gets quite a bit of work from most pulling movements, the question then goes to whether you are doing enough pulling in your program and should you be performing specific rear delt work?
A study by (Franke, R De Azevedo et al,. 2015) had 12 male subjects with at least 1 year of strength training experience assessed when performing the lat pulldown, reverse pec dec and seated row for rear delt muscle activation using EMG. Their findings showed that the rear delt was most active during the reverse pec dec, which is the result I’m sure you were expecting to hear.
The pec dec presents an issue for some however, it relies on the quality of the machine, some have a poor resistance curve and some may not be suited for your height / limb length making the movement awkward or not as beneficial. On the other hand, you may have access to one which suits you well which is great.
You may want to try, again… using cables… to do “reverse flys” (the movement on a pec dec). This can be done single or both arms at the same time, but typically these allow for a deeper stretch and increased range of motion as opposed to a Pec Dec.
Pro Tip: Instead of arcing out (with a straight arm) at shoulder height, try setting the cable higher than normal and arc out (with a straight arm) to below your shoulder line.
Another great option for targeting your rear delts are face pulls.
Now these can be done in various ways, and you may find certain styles work best for you anatomy.
Rope Cable Face Pulls
Seated Rope Cable Face Pulls
Chest Supported Dumbbell Face Pulls
All great options, you’ll be able to load the stack heavier with the seated face pull variation just due to counterbalancing the weight. Pull in line with your shoulder and focus on spreading the rope to make a 90 degree bend with your elbows.
Alternatively you can lessen the load and pull the rope higher in line with your eye level or forehead, (while still splitting the rope wide).
Both in my experience work well for rear delt development and shoulder health.
TLDR
Key Takeaways & Practical Applications
We want developed deltoids, not only for aesthetic reasons and being unable to walk through a doorway… but to reduce stress placed on our rotator cuffs and allow us to press and stabilize more weight.
Your front delts are more than likely overdeveloped if you do any decent amount of pressing in your program. Take the front raises out, overhead pressing targets your front delts better than front raises anyway.
Side delts respond well to lateral raises and upright rows, these can be performed in a variety of fashions using barbells, cables and dumbbells.
For lateral raises, cables offer the benefit of a more beneficial resistance curve, increased range of motion and tension in the lengthened position.
For upright rows, take a shoulder width grip or wider to better target your delts.
Posterior delts respond well to both reverse flys and face pulls, try a few variations and see what works well for you with your anatomy and biomechanics.
As with the goal of training any muscle, we want to provide enough training volume with enough intensity (0-3RIR) to stimulate growth.
To optimize growth potential, pick movements that allow you to take your muscle through its full range of motion with a good resistance curve.
Till next time,
Keep Training & Keep Pushing.
Mark ✌️