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If you’ve ever wondered why your shoulders weren’t growing, or were looking for an effective way to train your shoulders, look no further. Josh Hyaduck, a natural bodybuilder, graciously shares his routine and tips.

First off, I will go ahead and say that I feel a great majority of my shoulder development has come in results from heavy chest and back compound exercises. My shoulders always feel more worn out from a nice chest or back workout than any shoulder workout that I have given them.

Heavy bench pressing, and heavy dips are two of the best exercises in developing the front heads of the shoulders. I’ve been up to a 405lb one rep max on bench and I have repped out 350lbs on dips for 8 reps.

That’s a whole lot of weight being put on my shoulders and the technique that I use focuses on making sure that my shoulders feel that weight. When bench pressing I use more of a power-lifting style, which is holding the bar at a shoulder width grip, bringing the shoulders and triceps into the movement a bit more. On back days I do lots of rows and pull-downs that hit the rear heads of my shoulders pretty well: to be more specific, dumbbell rows. When performing dumbbell rows, be sure to use a full range of motion and bring that weight up as high as possible to really squeeze the back of your shoulder. My elbows usually get up a good bit above my shoulders at the top of the lift. Deadlifts are good as well. Be sure to roll your shoulders back at the top of the lift to really squeeze pretty much everything in your back, including your shoulders. Enough with all of that though, let’s get on to the actual shoulder work. I have two different routines I like to do for shoulders and one is directed towards overall size and width and the other is pretty much just defining your shoulders. This first routine I post will be the size routine and I just started doing it a month ago and I really like it.

Hypertrophy Routine (size)

Cable Side Laterals

• 30lbs, 8 reps
• 40lbs, 8 reps
• 50lbs, 6 reps

Behind the Neck Military Press

• 135lbs, 8 reps
• 155lbs, 8 reps
• 175lbs, 8 reps
• 195lbs, 8 reps
• 215lbs, 6 reps

Regular Military Press

• 195lbs, 8 reps
• 205lbs, 8 reps
• 215lbs, 6 reps

DB Military Press

• 60s, 8 reps
• 70s, 8 reps
• 80s, 6 reps

DB Front Raises

• 45s, 8 reps

DB Reverse Flies

• 40s, 8 reps

DB Side Laterals

• 40s, 8 reps

Conclusion:
As you can see it is a lot of heavy variations to the Military Press since the Military Press is the only real compound for shoulders. It is optimal to stay between 6 and 8 reps with the last set being very heavy. No need to go real heavy on the isolating exercises when training this way, it’s would be a very easy way to hurt your shoulders.

Definition Routine (for all the cuts)

Behind the Neck Military Press

• 135lbs, 12 reps
• 155lbs, 12 reps
• 175lbs, 12 reps
• 185lbs, 12 reps

DB Front Raises

• 35s, 12 reps
• 40s, 10 reps
• 45s, 8 reps

DB Side Laterals

• 30s, 12 reps
• 35s, 10 reps
• 40s, 8 reps

DB Reverse Flies

• 30s, 12 reps
• 35s, 10 reps
• 40s, 8 reps

Conclusion:

And that’s pretty much it. As you can see it’s a little bit of higher reps and more focused towards the isolating movements for shoulders.

Pictures Of My Shoulder Development:

[View with PicLens]

Final Note:

That’s really all I’ve ever done for shoulders and that’s all I ever plan on doing for them. One last piece of advise would be to concentrate more on the negative reps when training your shoulders. It’s good to always control the negative rep no matter what body part is being trained but shoulders specifically gain a lot more from the slower and more controlled negative reps. I feel that all the routines that I do suit me perfectly and I doubt I’ll be changing much of anything I do. Hope this bit of information has helped you all but just remember, I still credit most my shoulder development to the heavy chest and back compound exercises. So if you aren’t doing a lot of compounds, I would suggest you start doing them. Any questions, comments or feedback on my shoulder routine just leave a comment below, thanks.

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