The Most Effective Way to Train Shoulders | Science Explained (12 Studies)

[Music] if you have to pick just one muscle that when developed properly has the biggest visual impact on your overall appearance what muscle would you pick your back quads glutes I think I'd pick the shoulders because when they're well-developed they make everything else just look better your waist looks smaller and more tapered your whole body takes on more of an ex frame assuming you train legs as well and everything else about your shape just seems to fit in better so if your goal is to maximize the development of the shoulders it's important to first consider their Anatomy the deltoid muscle is composed of three sets of distinct fibers the anterior or front deltoid originates on the clavicle or collarbone and inserts on the humerus bone of the upper arm the lateral or side deltoid originates on the top of the scapula or shoulder blade also inserting on the humerus in the posterior or rear deltoid inserts a little further back on the scapula still inserting on the humerus because the main shoulder joint is a ball-and-socket joint it has a very high degree of freedom meaning the muscles that act on it can perform a bunch of different functions but for this video we're going to focus on the primary joint actions the interior delts primary function is shoulder flexion or raising your arm up like in a front raise the lateral delt performs primarily abduction or lifting your arm out to the side like in a lateral raise and the rear delt presents primarily horizontal shoulder abduction moving your arms apart horizontally like in a bent-over reverse fly and while this video will focus primarily on the deltoid muscle is worth mentioning that the shoulder joint is also acted on by four muscles of the rotator cuff which primarily act as shoulder stabilizers in internal and external rotators so while they may not contribute much to the appearance of shoulder size and aesthetics keeping the rotator cuff muscles strong can help promote training longevity simply adding internal and external cable rotations at the beginning of your workout is one way to improve the health of the shoulder joint multiple lines of research indicate that the deltoid is merely a dead even 50/50 split of type one or slow-twitch in type two or fast-twitch muscle fibers which implies that as usual using a combination of high reps and low reps is the best way to optimize total muscle development I think that a cornerstone exercise for any shoulder focused routine is oppressed according to American strength training coach and author Mark Griffith oh the press is the most useful upper body exercise for sports conditioning and if I could use only one exercise to build the shoulders it'd probably be some sort of press a 2010 study by TREB the towel found that a flat or 0 degree incline led to the worst anterior delt EMG activity when compared with the 28 44 and 56 degree incline each of which showed similar activation levels although there was a trend for more activation with more incline and this is in line with previous research from barnett itaú showing that more shoulder activation with achieved with higher inclines in a later 2015 paper by la fayette al based on this data as a whole it appears that inclines between 28 to 90 degrees all activate the front deltoid to a large degree but it can't be said that one angle is significantly better than the others however on my analysis the trend seems to suggest that all else equal more inclined equals more adult involvement so what about dumbbells versus barbells a 2013 study compared deltoid EMG activity with four variations of the shoulder press standing barbell press standing dumbbell press seated barbell press and seated dumbbell press using 80 percent of a predetermined 1 rep max for 5 reps on each exercise front delt activation was found to be higher with the dumbbells in both the standing press and the seated press indicating that as far as activation is concerned dumbbells reign King and while the lateral and rear delts are activated much less than the front delt in all of these vertical pressing movements the standing dumbbell press did come out on top for both of these heads as well it seems that the front delts can be trained optimally through the use of pressing alone such as by including at least one horizontal press and one vertical press in a training routine and front raises don't seem to be of much utility here since not only are they often redundant they also just aren't as good at activating the front delts of dumbbell shoulder presses at least according to Sweeney 2014 which showed front raises to elicit only 57% activation relative to maximum voluntary contraction versus the 74% seen with dumbbell shoulder presses scientific fitness author Michael Gundel cited bodybuilders on average as having five times the front delt development of normal untrained folks but only three times the side delts and only 10 to 15% more rear delt size this indicates that there's the most room for improvement with side and rear delt components compared to the front delts the side delts are activated much less impressing 1 2013 paper showed the side delts to exhibit only about 20% muscle in the Smith machine shoulder press compared to the 70% for the front delts a later 2014 paper found the same basic result the shoulder press was better at activating the front delts than the side doe however using dumbbells instead of the smith machine seem to get the side delts more involved in effect that can probably be attributed to a stabilizing role of the side delts missing with use of the smith machine so while using a free weight press can lead to more side delt activation relative to a smith machine press it still isn't able to isolate them from the front delt and you really develop that x-frame appearance for this I think exercises that train shoulder abduction directly are needed that 2013 study by button natal found the top three heavy hitters for lateral delts to be the dumbbell lateral raise cable lateral raise and reverse pectus bio mechanically speaking internal rotation of the shoulder should lead to more lateral result involvement on lateral raises because of fiber orientation and line of pull the convention supported by Bo heck bare hands and bus keys EMG data however many experts suggest that internally rotating and pointing the pinkies up increases shoulder impingement and injury risk so if you want to play it safe or have a history of shoulder problems the slight increase in activation from this pinkies up cue may not be worth the potential risk it presents but as a single example I've been using this cue for 11 years now and haven't run into any issues personally stopping the raise at or just below shoulder height and keeping the scapula retracted seems to be protective in my experience one potential benefit of using cables over dumbbells is the more constant resistance curved dumbbells reach peak torque at the top end of the range of motion and virtually no tension is on the delt at the bottom of the range using cables ensures tension through the entire range of motions and some research shows that leaning away into the direction of the Rays takes emphasis away from the superspinatus and places it onto the side delt my favorite variation currently is the leaner way between the legs cable lateral raise another effective exercise for side delt stimulation is the upright row a 2013 study by McAllister ital compared to three different grip widths and found that a wide grip led to greater side delt EMG activity than a close or shoulder width grip and for what it's worth the wider grip also led to more rear delt and track activation as well however since improper technique on an upright row has been linked to shoulder impingement the authors of this study recommend keeping elbow elevation below shoulder height to minimize injury risk I personally find that using a rope allows for more freedom at the shoulder joint in a more calm mm positions I also queue myself to pull the rope apart as a row which in my experience turns on the side delts more than simply rolling straight up and finally that brings us to the off neglected rear delts a muscle important not only for a balanced looking posterior but also for postural and shoulder health generally but natal found that the rear delts were nearly silent in shoulder presses in other data suggests they barely contract in the benchpress push-up and other pressing movements and according to EMG expert Brett Contreras quote isolation exercises for the rear delts kick the out of compound movements back to button natal the reverse PEC tech incline last pulldown and seated row were the big three for the rear delts but it's worth noting that three studies from Frank button and Schoenfeld all independently showed the reverse PEC deck to elicit about 90% EMG activity for the rear delts interestingly a 2013 study by Schoenfeld a towel found that a neutral or palms facing each other hand position increased immune activity of the rear delts however co-author Brett Contreras later commented that some subjects saw a greater activation with the pronated or thumbs-down grip implying that you should play around with both and see what hand position feels best for you and your rear delts and while data is limited it's likely that other similar horizontal abduction based exercises like reverse flyes and reverse cable crossovers would also highly recruit the rear delts exercises like rows are also effective but since the traps can take over including isolation movements on days you train shoulders or back is the best way to optimize their development volume expert dr. Mike is Ertel suggests that front delt isolation work isn't required to make progress since horizontal and inclined or vertical pressing sufficient for both side and rear delts eight weekly sets of isolation work per week stands as a minimum for progress with double that or 16 to 22 weekly sets being a pretty optimal place for progress for most intermediate to advanced trainees just keep in mind the caveat that many quote isolation exercises target both the side and rear delts and would count as a set for both under the scheme training shoulders at least two times per week is supported by the most recent literature on training frequency however my experience working in the field suggests that isolation work for the side and rear delts can be performed as frequently as four to five times per week especially if they're lagging behind other body parts without recovery issues recommendations for training volume and frequency for both men and women will depend on your level of advancement and Urmi my shoulder head perfectly programs so if you take these training principles and apply them to an already sound fundamental training philosophy centered around consistency and progressive overload a pair of 3d delts are there for you waiting to be built what's going on everyone don't click out of the video just yet a few important things I want to touch on first is that I released my shoulder I have purchased the program for both men and women on the website today and the main difference between the two is that the women's program has less of an emphasis on the traps whereas the men's program has some carryover in the exercise selection between the trap the shoulders and that's just based on the fact that in my experience women tend not to want to build their traps as much as adults and the other differences are basically just physiological ones that I touched on in my sex differences the science explains again and if you're familiar with my body part specialization programs you know that these are better thought of as training manuals not just training programs so this really has everything you could ever want to know about the shoulders in one place it does have a complete eight-week training program but also all the scientific information to do with para dyes Asian progression schemes every exercise that's included in the program is given a full defense for why it's there complete with all the scientific references you can get that for $19.99 on my website for the first week of launch and after that it'll go up to $24.99 and also guys I did release a footnote to this video that explores some topics that I just didn't have the chance to in this one it digs a little bit deeper and I'd really appreciate your guy's participation on that video please go check that one out until next time thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Jeff Nippard

Views: 3,090,594

Rating: 4.9283381 out of 5

Keywords: vlog, vlogger, iifym, science, bodybuilding, legs, arms, chest, back, fit couple, build muscle, jeff nippard, christian guzman, summer shredding, lean, ripped, abs, diet, lose weight, fat, fitness, flex, biceps, shredded, gymshark, alphalete, physique, motivation, natural bodybuilding, canadian, shoulders, delts, delt, shoulder, science explained, explained, women, men, stephanie buttermore

Id: KyTAraGimfE

Length: 10min 19sec (619 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/technodelic]

So one takeaway I got from this is that training posterior and lateral delts on days I focus on lower body compounds isn't going to really effect my upper press/bench days.

[u/schmohawk]

I'll never understand why front raises are so popular in the gyms I've been in.

[u/RightProperChap]

No love for the Arnold Press?

[u/gatorslim]

Great video but good lord is that girl distractingly beautiful.

[u/btafd1]

I see a lot of negativity on front raises. Aren't front raises to OHP what flies are to bench?

Why is it considered such a bad exercise? If anything to me it sounds like a good way to isolate just the front delts. Never tried them

[u/[deleted]]

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[u/Anthony-Intensity]

Wondering if its better to train delts in a ''push workout'' (along with chest and tri's you know) Or training delts seperatly, 2-3 days appart from chest/tri work?

[u/o00A00o]

Great content and editing...

[u/Tophat_Benny]

I'm surprised to see that OHP uses more front than lateral delt. Interesting. It's not too much more I think, but I always assumed if your ohp from the start position sucks it's a lateral delt weakness.