HOW TO BUILD MASSIVE SHOULDERS

Like many of you, I've been watching the finals of the world's strongest man competition. One of the many things that always strikes me about these guys are the absolutely massive shoulders they have compared to powerlifters and bodybuilders.

My question is, if you were to able to watch Hugo Girard or Magnus Samuelsson or Mariusz Pudzianowski train, what exercises would they be doing to build those massive shoulders and that incredible overhead strength?

Let's see . . . would they be doing tons of lateral raises? would they be doing some heavy upright rows? would they be doing some intense cable work? maybe some front raises? No, no, wait . . . I know what they'd be doing. They would be doing those all important, mass building bent over lateral raises.

NOT!!!!! They would be doing set after set of heavy, heavy shoulder presses. Shoulder press with barbells, dumbbells, and other objects. I'm sure you're getting tired of me making the same point here on MT, and I know it's been made by others before me, but if you want huge delts then stick to heavy overhead pressing. It's all you need. Limited cable work and raises have their place in pre-contest preparation, but most of us aren't preparing for a competition in 2 months, we're trying to get huge. So stick with what will make you huge, and stop pus*ying around with sissy isolation exercises. The end.

Most people dont want to believe its that easy and simple. nice post

Great post Frankie

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Originally posted by Slyblackdragon

Got a question tho. On westside style training, where would overhead pressing fit in?

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Put them where you like

ME Bench Exercise
Assistance or Triceps Exercise
Overhead Press

Remember though that unless you are training to compete in powerlifting you could even do you ME as overhead press everyonce in a while. You could also do push jerks or split jerks on your DE day.

Frankie i agree totally with you about heavy pressing for building shoulders,i did used to train at Eddie Ellwoods dads gym back when he was bodybuilding and saw him training shoulders quite a few times,his routine now will be a lot different for strongman than what it was back then but his shoulders have always been massive.
He used to do heavy pressing but also tons of lateral raises,Barbell front raises,upright rows,bent over laterals and that was in the off season.

Raptor:

Interesting. I've seen some powerlifters and strongmen with huge rear delts from all the deadlifting they do. What you say is true though but only for a few advanced trainers. There's no point in worrying about rear delts until you have big shoulders.

I love overhead presses. I think for mass you have to go as heavy as you can with big exercises that involve more than one muscle group.

Thats a good point Sly, we all know that we should try to develop balanced strength. These guys are massinvely strong, so they really need to make sure the weaker, more neglected muscles are strengthened.

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Originally posted by Slyblackdragon

Maybe strongmen do all these shoulder excercises to work different heads and from different angles, to safeguard aggainst injury?

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Originally posted by PikeKing

Thats a good point Sly, we all know that we should try to develop balanced strength. These guys are massinvely strong, so they really need to make sure the weaker, more neglected muscles are strengthened.

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Sorry guys. This is flawed thinking. Isolation movements or directly targeting once muscle is exactly what can lead you to more injuries. Compounds, on the other hand, assure that all your muscles stay in balance. Each muscle will become as strong as it needs to be to carry out the specific lift.

For example, doing loads of chest isolation movements is not going to help your bench. On the contrary, it could cause your chest to become proportionately stronger than your delts and triceps, which could lead to injury. This is another reason why bodybuilders experience a much higher injury rate than Olympic or powerlifters. Steroids also contribute to muscles not maintaining their natural balance.

The best way to get better at a specific lift is to do it. Like the log lift the WSM do. The best way for them to get better at this contest is to do it and overhead pressing in general. No amount of isolation movements for the shoulders done at different angles is going to help them overhead press more nor will it safeguard them for injury. The best way to prevent injury is to train the exercise, build the connective tissue, and only attempt weights that are within your current ability level.

Pike:

Training rotator cuffs is a very good thing to do. Doing raises (front, side, or rear) is not going to help with injury prevention or generate meaningful mass gains.