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This part of the article series will deal with a muscle group in which even bodybuilders almost never stop fine-tuning: the complex muscles of the shoulders. These are made up of the following main areas:

• The anterior, lateral, and posterior areas of the deltoid muscle, which include the following muscles:
  • Pars Clavicularis – the muscle that attaches to the collarbone
  • Pars Acromialis – the muscle that attaches to the shoulder roof/acromion
  • Pars Spinalist – the muscle that attaches to the shoulder blade

• The rotator cuff, which consists of the following muscles
  • Infraspinatus muscle – the muscle that begins below the shoulder blade at the infraspinata scapulae and supports an inward rotation,
  • Supraspinatus muscle – the muscle. which is located directly above the aforementioned muscle and is involved in the lateral adduction of the arm
  • Teres Minor Muscle – the muscle that attaches to the side of the shoulder blade on the Margo Lateralis Scapulae and plays a role in the abduction of the arm
  • Subscapalaris muscle – the muscle that attaches to the inner part of the shoulder blade and enables internal rotation, adduction, and abduction of the shoulder.

Figure 1: The muscles of the shoulders (red) on the front and back of the body and the rotator cuff (purple) – the group of muscles and tendons that stabilize the shoulders.

Of these two muscle groups, the first – the complex of the front, side and rear shoulder muscles – is the muscle group that gives your shoulders the broad look everyone is striving for, while the muscles of the rotator cuff are a necessary but often overlooked prerequisite for that Show build-up of muscular shoulders.

Ultimately, the muscles of the rotator cuff provide the stability necessary to properly perform exercises such as frontal pushing, side lifting, reverse flying movements, and all the other common exercises used to build round, muscular shoulders. It is vital to keep this synergy in mind when putting together your training program. And if the risk of shoulder injuries due to underdeveloped shoulder stabilizers doesn’t upset you, the information that a strong shoulder base in the form of a well-trained rotator cuff will help you increase your weight on the bench may grab your attention.

But enough of complaining and ridicule. Let’s start by building up some mass on your shoulders and let’s take a look at the most effective exercises for building massive shoulder muscles and a powerful rotator cuff according to EMG studies.

1. The best exercises for the front, side, and back of the shoulder muscles:

Figure 2: As it turns out, the neck presses described for their susceptibility to injury are the most versatile shoulder exercises, since this exercise hard trains both the front and the side part of the shoulder muscles (illustration by sportkrachtfitness.nl)

I’ll probably never get tired of telling you that full isolation exercises like petri dish experiments are not something you can do in the gym – not even if you’re using one of these new, chic exercise machines whose names suggest that they do will do exactly that.

In the real world (and believe it or not – the gym is part of it), your muscles will always work together synergistically to move a weight from point A to point B. However, by choosing the right exercises and / or manipulating the execution of the exercise, it is very possible to influence which muscle group and even which individual muscles perform the lion’s share of the workload. Always remember this when you take a look at the following list of “most effective exercises” (more correctly I should perhaps say “the exercises with the highest EMG activity”).

For the side area:

• Lateral lifting – with dumbbells, internal rotation
• Reverse flying movements – machine, external rotation
• Neck presses – barbell, sitting

For the front area:

• Shoulder press – barbell, sitting
• Neck presses – barbell, sitting
• Lateral lifting – dumbbell, internal rotation
• Bench press – barbell
• Front raises – dumbbells, external rotation

For the rear area:

• Reverse flying movements – machine, internal rotation
• Reverse flying movements – dumbbells, internal rotation

Figure 3: The EMG activity of the front, side and back area of ​​the deltoid muscle in selected exercises relative to

• Barbell shoulder press (front area), bars 1 to 5 (barbell shoulder press (blue), barbell neck press (red), front lifting with external rotation (green), dumbbell side lifting with internal rotation (purple), dumbbell side lifting with internal rotation (turquoise)
• Dumbbell side lifts (side area), bars 6 to 8 (dumbbell side lifts with internal rotation (orange), reverse flying movements on the machine with external rotation (light blue), barbell neck presses (pink))
• Reverse flying movements with dumbbells (rear area), bars 9 and 10 (reverse flying movement on the machine with internal rotation (light green), reverse flying movement with dumbbells lying on a bench with 90-degree arm/torso angle and internal rotation (light violet) )

Based on the data from (1).

The EMG data in Figure 3 confirm what exercisers around the world have been promoting for decades.

A pressure exercise for the front shoulder muscles, a little lateral lifting for the side shoulder muscles and reverse flying movements for the back shoulders are all you need for the development of shoulder muscles such as cannonballs.

However, another common wisdom that front lifting is one of the most effective exercises for the front shoulder muscles is disproved. Even with arms rotated outward, front dumbbell lifting is 41% less effective than the gold standard barbell shoulder press. A possible reason (and one of the primary disadvantages of all EMG data) for the “inferior” activation of the front shoulder muscles by dumbbell front lifting is that this exercise uses significantly lower weights than barbell shoulder presses.

For example, if the subjects used 120 pounds for the barbell shoulder press but only 25 pounds per dumbbell for the front lift, then the muscle activity per pound weight for the dumbbell front lift with 548µV / 25lbs = 21.92 would be about three times higher than with the barbell shoulder press with – 929µV / 120lbs = 7.71 failed.

Against this background, however, there is no question that in a volume program there is definitely a place for an isolation exercise such as a dumbbell front lifting, even if this is not a classic muscle-building exercise, the salient feature of which is maximum muscle strain.

Training tip:

Even though the corresponding EMG values ​​for dumbbell exercises were not measured in this study, it is very likely that exercises like dumbbell shoulder presses provide an additional stimulus compared to their barbell counterpart, which is related to the natural arc of movement in which You get a good stretch at the deepest point of the movement and you can consciously contract the muscles in the contracted position when the dumbbells approach each other in the upper area of ​​the movement.

Thus, dumbbell shoulder presses are also a useful alternative for barbell neck presses, since the position of the center of gravity is more in line with your head over the entire movement. It can, therefore, be assumed that the stimulus is shifted away from the front shoulder muscles more towards the lateral shoulder muscles, as is also the case with neck presses vs. Barbell shoulder presses is the case.

Figure 4: With the natural arched movement, dumbbell shoulder presses could be useful, if not preferable, alternative to barbell shoulder presses and barbell neck presses (Image source: everkineti.com)

I cannot emphasize enough that the shape is becoming more and more important with lighter weights and since your shoulders are particularly vulnerable to injury and generally weaker than your legs, for example, it is not only advisable but simply a question of physical limitations, lighter weights to use. The previously cited example of dumbbell front lifting shows that lighter weights are not synonymous with inferior muscle stimulation, since – correctly performed – isolation exercises per pound of moved weight can generate significantly more torque / pulling power than their mass-building counterparts.

Figure 5: Reduction of EMG activity with selected versions of dumbbells side lifting and reverse flying movements relative to side lifting with external rotation, side lifting with 90-degree arm/torso angle and reverse flying movements on the machine with internal rotation:

• Dumbbell side lift with internal rotation (blue)
• Dumbbell side lift with neutral handle (hammer handle)
• Reverse flying movements with dumbbells and 45-degree arm/torso angle
• Reverse flying movements on the machine with internal rotation

(Calculations based on (1)).

However, the shape not only determines the general intensity – but the way you do your shoulder exercises also has a strong impact on the degree to which the three areas of the shoulder muscles are activated.

• Running dumbbells with internal rotation, for example, reduced the activity of the lateral part of the shoulder muscles by 16%.
• The use of a neutral grip (hammer grip with the thumbs up) has been associated with a 12% reduction in EMG activity.
• In the case of reverse flying movements with dumbbells, using a 45-degree angle instead of a 90-degree angle reduced the load on the side of the shoulders by 29%.
• With reverse flying movements on the machine, gripping the handles from the outside instead of the inside (external vs. internal rotation of the arm) resulted in a 20% reduction in stimulus.

How to do side lifts correctly

If you use what you learned at the end of the last section to your advantage, you can optimize the load on the target muscle while using lighter weights and reducing your risk of injury. I know the heavyweights are more impressive, but what will the use of the heaviest weights bring you if you do not make progress in strength or muscle mass due to an incorrect form of exercise?

It’s one thing to fake the last 1 or 2 repetitions of a set to squeeze the last few drops of fuel out of your muscle’s tanks – and it’s completely different than neglecting the correct shape to just be the type of person moving heavyweights.

There is hardly an exercise in which this is as obvious as with dumbbell side raises. If you do not do it yourself, you will surely know someone who grabs the 25 kg dumbbells, holds them vertically in front of the bar, tears the dumbbells upwards at the side, lets them fall down again and then the whole misery starts again, until he grabs his shoulders with his face contorted with pain, but not without the pride of having used heavier weights than the guy next to him.

Note: The following analysis is based on a very simple mechanical model and does not take into account factors such as increased load per square surface of the muscle fibers in the stretched position, effects of static or complete contraction, etc.

You already know from the previous section and the EMG data that it is crucial to keep the arms rotated externally – that is, to pretend that you are trying to pour an imaginary fluid out of the dumbbell at the highest point of movement – if you don’t want to lose 16% of your muscle tension from the start.

But what about the guy just mentioned who doesn’t even get a chance to think of pouring out a liquid other than the one in his shaker bottle when doing his ballistic exercises? Which of his mistakes do you think has the greatest impact on the effectiveness of page lifting?

1. An excessive elbow flexion (often up to 90 degrees) and a reduced lever arm?
2. or the inability to move the dumbbells up to shoulder height, ie the angle between the arm and torso is well below 90 degrees (often even well below 70 degrees).

Well, from a physical point of view – whatever provides a very selective and oversimplified view of reality – the answer is “1. too much flexion of the elbow. ”Surprised?

Figure 6: Effects of arm/torso angle and elbow flexion on torque / tightening force while lifting dumbbells.

While lifting the dumbbells to 75 degrees only reduces the torque / tightening force by 5%, bending the elbow by 90 degrees lowers the torque that your side shoulder muscles have to overcome by an enormous 50%!

Think about it the next time you see a guy in the gym using 25 kilos of dumbbells for side raises. There is a high probability that you will be significantly stronger than you with your 15 kg dumbbells, as long as you do not reduce your elbow flexion by more than this 15%, which reduce some of the load on the joint but only minimally reduce the torque acting on the muscle.

2. The best exercises for the rotator cuff

I hope that with everything you have learned about shoulder training, you have not forgotten what I mentioned at the beginning of this article: Training for the rotator cuff is tantamount to active injury prevention.

Even though most exercisers don’t even feel these muscles working, the muscles of the rotator cuff are vital to the stability of the most flexible and sensitive joint in your entire body. These often overlooked and untrained muscles hold the ligaments and bones of your shoulder in place so that your other muscles like the shoulder muscles and the pectoral muscles can do their job. Developing a strong infraspinatus, supraspinatus, and teres minor muscles is also the basis for moving heavyweights on the bench to impress the boys in the gym. If you do not believe this, then you should read the following anecdote, of which the strength trainer Charles Poliquin has to report:

One of my professional hockey players, Jim McKenzie, improved his tight bench press by almost 51 pounds from 280 to 331 pounds within 12 weeks by focusing on the strength of the rotator cuff muscles.

Even if I doubted the universal applicability of Poliquin’s “examinations”, it is certainly worth mentioning, as far as the average gym-goer is concerned, that his years of experience training athletes of all disciplines have shown him that “the power of the rotator cuff should be about 9.8 percent of what you can squeeze on the bench painlessly. ”This means that if you push 100 pounds on the bench, you shouldn’t be surprised if your shoulder starts to hurt when you are unable to perform external rotations on a mat lying on the floor with 10 kg dumbbells.

Figure 7: EMG activity of the primary muscles of the rotator cuff in selected exercises relative to external rotations with dumbbells lying on the side on the floor (blue):

• External dumbbell rotations, elbows on a bench, upper arm horizontal (red ()
• External dumbbell rotations standing, slightly bent (green)
• External rotation on the cable pull (purple)
• Static door jamb pushbacks with 90-degree arm/torso angle (turquoise)

The calculations are based on the data from the source (1).

Speaking of external rotation – as the data in Figure 7 shows, this is by far the best isolation exercise for the muscles of the rotator cuff. Basically, it doesn’t really matter whether you’re doing it with a barbell, lying on the floor, or with your elbows on a bench, or whether you prefer doing this exercise on a cable.

The differences are negligible compared to the large difference that incorrect exercise execution would make. So it is better if you do an exercise that you like with light weights and feels the muscles work than if you use an exercise that studies XYZ has shown to be of a weight that you hardly can get along, was most effective and you don’t feel the target muscles working.

Incidentally, this also applies to static door frame pushbacks, which basically represent an inverted extension of the pectoral muscles, in which you push the back of your arm (arm/torso angle of 90 degrees) backward against an immovable object such as a door jamb. If you don’t feel that this static exercise works for you, choose another exercise.

Isolate the supraspinatus muscle with lateral raises:

According to Jobe & Moynes (1), dumbbell sideways lifting with horizontal adduction of the arm by 30 degrees completely isolates the supraspinatus muscle if you rotate the shoulders so that your palms are pointing towards the floor (the good old “bottle emptying” technique). 1 to 2 sets of lateral raises in this way are a time-efficient way to include a strengthening exercise for the upper part of the rotator cuff in your program. However, you will need to use much lighter weights than regular side lifts.

Figure 8: Dumbbell lateral raises with 30 degrees horizontally added arms for the supraspinatus muscle.

3. Conclusion – three plus one is synonymous with injury-free strength and muscle mass

An imperative prerequisite for building impressive shoulder muscles and thus also broad, round shoulders is a stable foundation in the form of strong muscles of the rotator cuff. If you neglect the latter, then you will either reach a plateau or, worse, injure yourself sooner or later.

Your front shoulder muscles, in particular, are put to hard use during pretty much all the chest and triceps pressure exercises. It is, therefore, neither necessary nor advisable (if at all) to do more than one “isolation exercise” in the form of a multi-joint exercise such as barbell or dumbbell shoulder press. By the way, the shoulder press is also an exercise that will clearly help you advance the development of the upper chest – an area in which many bodybuilders feel that they are deficient.

If you do some side lifting and reverse flying movements in addition to this mass building exercise, the only thing left to do is an exercise for the rotator cuff of your choice – after which you are ready for some highly anabolic rest and regeneration.

An EMG-optimized shoulder training

There are of course a variety of ways to combine individual exercises. My personal recommendation for the good overall development of the shoulders and the strength of the rotator cuff would look as follows based on the EMG measurements:

1. Shoulder press – sitting barbell or dumbbell, 6-8 reps
2. Lateral lifting – with dumbbells, elbow flexion <15 ° (!), 10-12 repetitions
3. Reverse flying movements – machine or dumbbells, internal rotation, 10-12 repetitions
4. External dumbbell rotations – lying on the floor, 12-15 repetitions

Tip: You can also do a few Arnold Presses if you feel that you are not pushing your front shoulder muscles enough.

You may have noticed that I don’t give volume recommendations (ie number of sets). This is based on the fact that I have found that everyone has to find out for themselves what works best for them in terms of optimal volume, training frequency, and split program. This can change over time depending on lifestyle factors, diet, and supplementation.