The shoulder press is one of the most important basic exercises. Therefore, you should learn and practice the exercise sequence at the beginning of your training career.

In addition to the growth of the shoulder muscle, shoulder press also serves as an assistant exercise for bench press, especially if you are doing powerlifting.

So if the shoulder muscles become stronger through the shoulder press, this will also show up as an increase in strength in the bench press.

There are different options for the execution:

1. sitting with dumbbells

2. standing with dumbbells

3. sitting with the barbell

4. standing with the barbell

The most recommendable is standing shoulder press with dumbbells because with this variant most of the muscle fibers of the lateral and front shoulder muscles are used.

Expert tip: a wide grip is best suited to achieve maximum strain on the shoulder muscles. The closer the grip is chosen, the more the triceps are trained instead of the shoulder.

The best exercise for the muscles of the lateral shoulder: lateral lifting

Lateral lifting is considered the best exercise to train the side shoulder. On the one hand, this exercise is easy to learn, on the other hand, it fulfills the function of the lateral shoulder area.

When performing the exercise, it is important to ensure that the arms do not exceed 90 degrees, because firstly, the risk of impingement syndrome is reduced, secondly, this maintains the tension in the target muscle, because if you raise your arms above 90 degrees, you exercise instead Shoulder muscles the neck (trapezius.)

A note to form lovers:

You don’t have to take the falsification too seriously. Arandjelović (2013) demonstrated that a slight deflection increases the stimulation of the target muscle when lifting sideways, which is helpful for the building of the muscle.

The best exercise for the muscles of the back shoulder: leaning forward

The bent sideways lift is the classic for the back shoulder muscles.

With this training exercise, it is important to note that it is included in the isolation exercises, so you should ignore the maximum strength training here.

Therefore, you should do the exercise with a weight that allows at least eight clean repetitions. However, it is not a serious problem if momentum is used to perform the last repetition.

Expert tip No. 1: you should make sure that the elbow does not move the training weight upwards, but outwards.

Over time, you will get a feel for using the back shoulder in particular and at the same time putting as little strain on your neck as you move.

Expert tip No. 2: one should avoid pulling back the shoulder blades! 

Because the moment you pull back your shoulder blades, you lose the tension in the area of ​​the shoulders and instead it changes to the neck muscles.

Expert tip No. 3: the best way to select a handle is to use a neutral handle, i.e. the palms of your hands should be facing each other. This protects the shoulder joints and at the same time activates as many muscle fibers as possible.