So, you want to build some impressive boulder shoulders. You don't need to start lifting heavy
rocks, but you do need to start with a pair of heavy dumbbells. And the first exercise
I'm recommending is a Dumbbell Seesaw Press. And what we're doing here is, we re simply going to
alternate one arm driving up and the other arm pulling down. And that's the key. I want you
to actively pull down with the one arm as you press the other one up, because neurologically
we actually function as push pull machines so we can get better output by pulling down while we're
trying to push up. The other thing that we see here is a stacking of the wrist over the elbow,
over the shoulder by simply leaning a little bit to one side while we press up. This would be very
helpful for those people that have a little bit of discomfort with overhead pressing. Now you're
not locked into having to do the Seesaw Press, if you prefer, you can do the Barbell Overhead Press
or you can do one of my favorites, The Landmine Press, it doesn't matter which one you pick,
just start off with something heavy. But now I know you were thinking, Jeff,
can I have the sets of reps, please? So, what you do is four sets of this exercise. The first one,
you're going to choose a weight that you could fail in the 8 to 10 rep range.
The second set, you're going to choose heavier weight that allows you to fail in the 6 to 8 rep
range. And on the last two sets you're going to keep that weight the same and work your
way towards getting those 6 to 8 reps again. Even if you have to rest/pause your way to it.
But you're not done because here's where the fun starts, because now you drop one of the dumbbells
and do an over and back where you're just going to try to burn out those delts one more time
by heaving the dumbbell and using a little bit of momentum from your legs if necessary.
If you're using the Barbell Overhead Press, you're simply going to turn it into a Push Press
once you've reached fatigue. And if you did that Landmine Press, you're going to use your legs once
again here to grind out those final grueling reps. Now, of course, if you want bolder shoulders,
we're not stopping with one exercise. We need to start focusing more on that middle delt and how we
can build it out. And my favorite way to do that is with something called the Cable Side Lateral
Row. And here you take a cable, if you have access to one, don't worry, I'll give you an
option if you don't. And we simply going to pull our arm across our body and pull
out into abduction to hit that middle delt. Look at the stretch that we're getting on the
middle delt and the rear delt in the beginning position, because I can cross my arm all the
way across the front of my body. That gives us the chance to recruit these muscle fibers more
effectively because of that stretch preceding every rep. But I mentioned maybe you don't
have access to this machine. No problem. All you have to do is this Side Lying Lateral Raise. And
by just simply laying yourself on the bench like this, you're having your arm drop down
into that pre stretch position, giving you the same benefits without necessarily the equipment
requirements. As far as sets and reps here, you're talking about three sets of 8 to 10
on each arm. No need to rest in between, as you're working one arm, you're wrestling the other.
Keep the flow going here, guys, to keep the gains coming. But that round fullness characteristic of
a boulder shoulder isn't limited just to the middle delt. If you look at me from the side,
it's also going to grow in this direction too. And for that we've got to make sure we hit the
rear delt too. And I like to do something called the Hip Hugger. The idea would be focusing on what
the elbows are doing, they need to move out to the side and back behind you at the same time.
I don't want you to turn this into a shrug, and if you do that and don't think about just
lifting the dumbbells up, just rather take them along for the ride, you're going to nail this
exercise every time. Squeeze every single rep at the top, increase the weight here,
three sets of 6 to 8 reps that will get the job done. Did somebody say rear delts? Might as well
just said Face Pulls because you knew we weren't going to make it through a full shoulder workout
without including my favorite exercise. And here what I'm looking for is stimulation of the rear
delts. Of course, we're going to hit the upper back too, because this exercise is just so damn
versatile. But I want you to get those elbows back behind your body. A lot of people do this wrong,
they leave the elbows out in front of them. Get them at least to the level of your body
or back and keep those arms at 90 degrees and keep those hands pushing backwards to get the external
rotators. And this exercise is always going to be an amazing exercise for rounding out the back part
of that shoulder of yours. Now, when it comes to rounding out those boulders, more of us have less
of a problem doing it with our front delt. The development usually comes a lot easier because
of the other exercises we do, but it doesn't mean you have to avoid them entirely.
So, what we do here is one of my favorite exercises and it's just
a Stretch Front Raise. And all we're doing here, guys, is applying the same principle we did before
with putting that pre-stretch on the muscle that we want to grow. We can elicit a stronger
contraction just by dropping those arms down, which naturally puts them into extension because
of the angle of the incline bench. If you don't have access to this or you want an alternative,
you could do this with the cables and what we call a Cable Stretch Front Raise. That stretch being
applied to the front delt is going to help with the recruitment of those type two fibers which
are most capable of growth and creating that full boulder shoulder that you're looking for.
Once again, you're looking for three sets of 8 to 10 reps for maximum shoulder development and to
cap off this workout. And yes, pun intended. And because I always look to hook up my subscribers,
if you're looking for this workout, you don't feel like writing it down. You can have it over
at athleanx.com/boulders. If you're looking for more workouts, you check out these two
shoulder workouts and make sure you subscribe guys. I'll be back here next week. See you.