How I Blew Up My Shoulders (7 Tips)

What's the difference between these three physiques? It's the shoulders,

three physiques? It's the shoulders, right? This person has underdeveloped

right? This person has underdeveloped delts. This person has well-developed

delts. This person has well-developed delts. And this person has 3D delts. And

delts. And this person has 3D delts. And

in this video, I'm going to show you seven shoulder training tips for 3D delts. So, we'll start with a few tips

delts. So, we'll start with a few tips that are a bit more common, and then as we go, they'll get more and more obscure. So, I'd say most of you have

obscure. So, I'd say most of you have tried the first tip before, but I'd bet less than 1% of you know about the seventh tip. Of course, these things

seventh tip. Of course, these things that I'm going to show you aren't as important as simply training hard and being consistent, but they are techniques that I use in my own training, and most of them have at least some scientific support, which I'll

highlight as we go. All right, the first tip is to take your traps out. This

one's pretty obvious, but if your traps are taking over on your shoulder movements, your delts could be getting robbed of precious tension. Now, you'll

hear some coaches say that since most guys want bigger traps anyway, getting some crossover work isn't actually a bad thing. And the argument goes, as long as

thing. And the argument goes, as long as you go to failure, your delts will grow, even if your traps help out. There's

some truth to that, but I do think that for some trainees, their delts go nearly silent if the traps take over. And in my coaching experience, a lot of female trainees want to avoid growing their traps. So, this will help with that.

traps. So, this will help with that.

Over the years, I found one cue to be most effective in helping people engage their side delts over their traps. Here

it is. Picture that you have this long shovel and you're scooping sand out to the side. This will force you to keep

the side. This will force you to keep your shoulders down and sweep the weight out using your side delts rather than shrugging it up using your traps. To be

sure though, I went to the gym and I asked random people to try out two different cues. For the first queue, I

different cues. For the first queue, I just told them to just get the weight up. Use whatever muscles you need to use

up. Use whatever muscles you need to use to move the weight.

>> I just want you to focus on getting the weight up. So, use whatever muscles you

weight up. So, use whatever muscles you need to to move the weight.

>> Perfect.

>> I'm already thinking too much.

>> Good. It looks nice. For the second cue, I told them to think about keeping their shoulders down and sweeping the weight out like you've got this long shovel and you're scooping sand out to the side.

>> Jesus. Wow.

>> It makes it way harder, right? Did you

notice any difference in like how it felt?

>> Harder.

>> It was harder than the second.

>> Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Hey,

>> I felt it a lot more on the second one.

Like I could feel tension more on the way up when I'm like >> Yeah.

>> down at the bottom.

>> Good. Cuz you can like this motion will take your traps out from the beginning and then Yes. as you start to get through the range of motion, they have to come in because your scapula had to rotate. But

rotate. But >> if you can initiate this way, I feel like you can turn the side delts on faster. Now, this is obviously not a

faster. Now, this is obviously not a scientific survey, but every single person I showed this to said they felt more side delt activation when they focused on scooping the weight out rather than just lifting the weight up.

The second tip is to train your shoulders more often. According to this poll of my audience, most of you train your shoulders twice per week. 24% of

you hit them just once a week. But

here's the crazy part. Only 11% of you hit them three times per week and just 4% more than that. That's a low frequency. And I think that's a mistake

frequency. And I think that's a mistake if you're trying to maximize their growth. Here's why. The amount of truly

growth. Here's why. The amount of truly effective volume that you can do for a single muscle in a single workout is lower than most people think. It

probably starts to cap out at around six, maybe eight sets in a workout. In

other words, after you've done six to eight sets for your shoulders in a single workout, doing more than that probably isn't doing much, if anything.

A recent meta analysis from this year suggests that the cap could be as high as 11 sets per muscle per workout, but once you get above six or so, the returns are greatly diminishing anyway.

Because of this, the best way to get in more effective shoulder work isn't to throw more sets on top of the workouts you already do. It's to hit them more often. Rather than cramming the volume

often. Rather than cramming the volume onto just one or two days, spread it out across three or four days. Earlier in my bodybuilding career, I used to do three sets of dumbbell lateral raises after

every single workout, 5 days a week. I

think that made a difference. But what

about recovery? Well, this is anecdotal, but from my coaching experience, your shoulders do recover pretty quickly.

They almost never get sore. Like, do you remember the last time your shoulders actually got sore? And in my coaching experience, they can tolerate quite a beating. My shoulder strength bounces

beating. My shoulder strength bounces back really fast, even after super hard workouts. So, even if you hit them hard

workouts. So, even if you hit them hard with 3 to six sets on one day, you should feel ready to hit them again within 24 to 48 hours, especially if you're focusing on isolation exercises

like lateral raises and rear delt flies.

And if you want to pause and screenshot, this is how I'd set up a higher frequency shoulder plan, which borrows from my new Minmax program. Okay, tip

three is to get a brutally strong shoulder press. For me, that's this

shoulder press. For me, that's this machine shoulder press, but it can be any vertical press that you can overload. machine, dumbbell or barbell.

overload. machine, dumbbell or barbell.

Load it up with a weight that you can do for five or six reps and add a little weight each week. Stick with that for a year, a full year. And if after a year you haven't gained some serious shoulder mass, come back to this video, take your

leg back, and swap it for a dislike.

You've earned it. The reason why this works is simple. As you progressively lift more and more weight on the shoulder press, you're increasing the mechanical tension that your delts experience. Mechanical tension is the

experience. Mechanical tension is the main driver of hypertrophy. It isn't

that strength directly causes more size, but they are linked. If your delts are getting stronger on the same exercise with the same reps and the same form, you have in all likelihood added new

contractile tissue to be able to produce that extra force. Now, you'll often hear that you don't need a vertical press because they only hit your front delts.

And your front delts already get all the work that they need on horizontal presses. And yes, your front delts do

presses. And yes, your front delts do get a lot of work on horizontal presses, but your side delts are a lot more active on vertical presses than people realize. In fact, I tested this out for

realize. In fact, I tested this out for myself with EMG and actually saw more side delt activation than front delt activation on this machine shoulder press. And as we'll see when we get to

press. And as we'll see when we get to tip six, since you can only add weight to lateral raises for so long, having a strength focused shoulder press makes sure that you keep progress moving.

Okay, tip number four is to bring your waist down. And it's funny because out

waist down. And it's funny because out of every tip on this list, this is the one I think most people will skip, but it's also the one that'll have the biggest impact on how 3D your shoulders

look by far. Here I am at 20% body fat, and here I am at 9% body fat after using my Smart Nutrition app macro factor for my cut. My shoulders are definitely

my cut. My shoulders are definitely broader and rounder at 9% because my waist is smaller and there's less body fat around my deltoid muscle. The cuts

are deeper. There's more separation between the heads. And that creates the illusion of a more 3D look. Honestly,

you could ignore every other tip in this video and just get leaner while training your shoulders hard, and they'll look so much more 3D. So, if you need a little help with your nutrition, you can try out Macroofactor for 2 weeks for free at the first link in the description box

below, and I'll have a little more info about that at the end. The fifth tip is to lift through a variety of muscle lengths. Real quick to get everyone on

lengths. Real quick to get everyone on the same page. A muscle is shortened during the contracted half of the range of motion and a muscle is lengthened during the stretched aspect of the range of motion. That's because the muscle

of motion. That's because the muscle gets longer as you stretch it and shorter as you contract it. So the

deltoid is shortened from here to here and lengthened from here to here. But

here's the thing. For the front delts, when most people do shoulder presses, they go from here to here and back to here. That's a pretty short range of

here. That's a pretty short range of motion. For the side delts, most people

motion. For the side delts, most people do lateral raises from here to here and back to here. There's some length here at the bottom, but peak tension doesn't hit until the delts are pretty short.

And for the rear delts, it might be worst of all. Instead of going from here to here and back to here, most people just go from here to here and back to

here. That's a lot of short length

here. That's a lot of short length emphasis. But longer length training

emphasis. But longer length training really seems to have benefits. These

three studies showed between 130 and 190% more growth when training at a longer muscle length for the quads, biceps, and calves, respectively. For

the delts, there's only one 8week study that kind of looked at different muscle lengths, and it compared the dumbbell lateral raise to the cable lateral raise. Dumbbell laterals provide more

raise. Dumbbell laterals provide more tension when the delta is short. Cable

laterals provide more tension when the delta is long. And based on prior research, the authors hypothesized that cables would result in more growth since they offered more lengthened tension.

But there was actually no difference.

Both cables and dumbbells grew the shoulders about the same. That's why I think as the research stands, you should include both short length and long length exercises. But since most people

length exercises. But since most people overemphasize short length deltraining, here's the fix to balance things out. On

your shoulder presses, go deeper. Don't

stop once your arms hit parallel. Sink

your arms as low as they can comfortably go. On lateral raises, use a cable and

go. On lateral raises, use a cable and stretch it across your body rather than stopping at your side. So, sweep it across your body like this and the range of motion here rather than stopping at

your side. In fact, they actually did

your side. In fact, they actually did stop at their side in that 8week study, which I think might be part of the reason why they didn't find a difference with dumbbells. One of the potential

with dumbbells. One of the potential advantages of using cables is that you can increase the adduction range of motion and sweep the cable across your body while keeping tension. You can't do that with standing dumbbells. Or you

could try crossbody cable Y raises. I

love these and they offer about as big of a range of motion as you're going to get for your side delts from fully lengthened to fully shortened. If you

don't have cables, lie back on a 20°ree incline bench and do cross body Y raises with a dumbbell. For rear delts, just make sure you're crossing your arms over across your body and sweeping the weight back until you feel a nice rear delt

squeeze. Whether you do that with

squeeze. Whether you do that with cables, dumbbells, or a machine. Okay,

tip number six is to pick the right progression scheme for the right exercise. We all know that progressive

exercise. We all know that progressive overload is the key to keeping a muscle growing. You need to add a little more

growing. You need to add a little more stress to the muscle each week over time. If you keep using the same weight

time. If you keep using the same weight for the same reps week in and week out, the muscle has no reason to keep growing, but there is a slight problem with progressing on shoulder exercises.

Isolation movements like lateral raises are really hard to overload. If you

start with 15s and just add 5 lbs each week, by week eight you'd be up to 50 lb laterals. That's simply not realistic,

laterals. That's simply not realistic, even if you get some serious cheating going. So, you need to make sure that

going. So, you need to make sure that your progression scheme actually matches the exercise that you're doing. For your

heavy shoulder press, use a simple linear progression. Add 5 or 10 lbs each

linear progression. Add 5 or 10 lbs each week at a fixed rep count of five or six reps. Every 4 to 8 weeks or so, do a D

reps. Every 4 to 8 weeks or so, do a D lo week where you drop the weight back a bit and don't go quite as hard. For

isolation exercises like lateral raises and rear delt flies, that linear progression won't work because you'll quickly max out how much weight you can add. So instead, use something called a

add. So instead, use something called a double progression. In this case, you

double progression. In this case, you pick a rep range rather than a rep target. Let's say 10 to 12 reps. Start

target. Let's say 10 to 12 reps. Start

in week one with a weight that you know you can do for 10 reps and hit failure or get close to it. The next week, do that same weight, but this time for 11 reps. Then the next week, 12 reps. Once

reps. Then the next week, 12 reps. Once

you hit the top end of that rep range, add some weight and go back to 10 reps again. The next week, at the new weight,

again. The next week, at the new weight, add one rep again, and so on and so on.

And if you're doing three sets, you don't need to add a rep to all three sets. Just one rep to one set is enough

sets. Just one rep to one set is enough to keep progression moving, especially as you get more advanced. But

eventually, you won't even be able to add one rep to one set without your form breaking down. At that point, here's the

breaking down. At that point, here's the fix. Rotate in a new exercise and start

fix. Rotate in a new exercise and start your progression over. If you were doing dumbbells, switch to cables and run a new double progression there. Once you

max out what you can do on cables, switch to a machine and run a new double progression there. You'd be surprised

progression there. You'd be surprised just how much of a difference actually having a planned progression scheme that you actually track and stick to makes over time. Okay, we've gone through

over time. Okay, we've gone through keeping your traps out, increasing frequency, getting a brutally strong shoulder press, bringing your waist down, including some longer muscle lengths, and picking the right

progression. At the very bottom of the

progression. At the very bottom of the iceberg, we have the seventh tip, which is to target all heads of the delts.

This anatomy research took 60 cadaavvers, dissected them, and found that instead of the commonly known anterior, lateral, and posterior heads, they're actually seven intramuscular

segments to the deltoid, each with its own separate tendon. What we think of as the posterior head actually branches into three separate tendons. The middle

head has just one tendon, and the front head also branches into three separate tendons. So each of these seven segments

tendons. So each of these seven segments has a slightly different function. So

instead of your usual front, side, and rear raises, add in some movements for the planes in between. To bias the fibers of the A2 and A3 segments, I do incline dumbbell Y raises by lifting up

and out in a Y. You'll place the path of resistance directly in line with those in between fibers. For the P1 and P2 segments, try a movement like the 45° cable rear delt pull. Stretch your arm

across your body at around a 45°ree angle and sweep the weight down and back almost like you're pulling out an arrow to use for a bow and arrow. As a ball and socket joint, your shoulder has a massive amount of freedom of movement in

all three dimensions. So, if you're trying to build some 3D delts, make sure you're training them in all three dimensions. Okay, huge announcement

dimensions. Okay, huge announcement before we go. The MacroFactor Workouts app is launching in January 2026. Most

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click the first link in the description box down below to get started with MacroFactor, or you can scan this QR code over here next to my head. Don't

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