Hey what's up guys, Sean Nalewanyj here of SeanNal.com and BodyTransformationTruth.com
and today I want to talk about how to build round shoulders that maximize your overall
upper body width.
So if you ask most muscle building experts how to build round shoulders you'll usually
get the same basic answer.
They're going to tell you to put your primary focus on compound overhead pressing movements
such as the barbell military press or the seated overhead dumbbell press because these
exercises allow you to handle the greatest amount of total weight and they target the
entire shoulder complex for overall mass.
Now, I certainly don’t discount the value of an overhead press as part of a well-balanced
training plan.
It’s a highly functional exercise.
It has its own unique muscle building benefits, and I do believe that it should be included
in your overall training routine.
However, if we’re talking specifically from a hypertrophy perspective about increasing
the width and the roundness of your shoulders, the reality is that overhead presses are actually
not the most important exercise in your arsenal.
And why is this?
Well, your shoulders are actually broken up into 3 main heads.
You have the anterior head which is the front, the lateral head which is the middle and the
posterior head which is the rear.
The development of the anterior head is certainly important for achieving overall shoulder balance
but it actually contributes the least to the appearance of wide, round shoulders because
this head sits directly in front of your body and it doesn't really pop out like the other
two heads do.
And whenever you perform an overhead pressing exercise it's actually the anterior head that
is being primarily stimulated.
You can shift a bit more emphasis onto the lateral head by using dumbbells and by lowering
the weights closer down to shoulder level, but nonetheless, the anterior head will still
be taking the brunt of the load.
So, what’s the real key to building those round, “3D” shoulders that give your upper
body that wide look?
Well it's to focus primarily on building up your lateral head, with secondary focus on
the posterior head.
The lateral head is that, that slab of muscle that hangs directly off the side of your shoulders,
and the larger this head is, the rounder your delts are going to appear and the wider you’re
going to look overall.
The posterior head also plays a role, though not quite as noticeable and it lays directly
beside the lateral head on the back side of the shoulder.
So how do we target these heads with maximum effectiveness?
Well, aside from all of the indirect stimulation these heads receive on other compound exercises
like your overhead presses and your bench presses and your pull-ups and pulldowns and
rows etcetera, it’s actually pretty simple.
Number 1, you're going to use side lateral raises to target the lateral head and these
can be performed using dumbbells or a cable and, number 2 you're going to use bent over
rear lateral raises to target the posterior head.
And these can also be performed using dumbbells or a cable.
Face pulls are also a really good exercise but they hit the upper back just as much as
they hit the rear delts and if you really want to isolate the rear delts then rear lateral
raises are going to be be your best bet.
Now you might be thinking, well I already perform these two exercises and my shoulder
development is still not where I want it to be.
Well don’t feel bad about that because this is the case with most average lifters.
See, it’s not the mere inclusion of these lifts in your routine that is the real answer
here, but rather, it's the specific form that you utilize when you perform the movements.
And the plain fact is that most trainees do not execute these exercises in the proper
way to optimize their gains.
If you perform these lifts improperly you’ll actually end up shifting the focus off of
your delts and onto other surrounding muscles that you aren’t even trying to target.
Your side lateral raises will end up involving your traps and your spinal erectors to an
excessive degree while your rear lateral raises will end up involving the muscles of your
mid and upper back to an excessive degree.
You’ll still be hitting that lateral and posterior head with some decent stimulation,
but you won’t be maximizing your gains in the way that you could be if you just employed
a few simple tweaks to your lifting form.
And what specific form tweaks do you need to make?
Well, this is best demonstrated through video and I've already covered this in detail before
so I'm simply going to refer you to 2 short but very important videos that I'd strongly
recommend watching and I'll link them here on the screen as annotations and if you're
watching this video on mobile than I'll also link it in the description box below.
One video focuses on side laterals while the other video focuses on rear laterals.
It’ll only take a few minutes of your time but will make a world of difference in your
shoulder training moving forward.
Start employing those changes to your form on the side lateral raise and the rear lateral
raise and I guarantee you’ll notice a huge difference in your ability to maximally stimulate
the lateral and posterior heads, and that you’ll start building rounder, thicker,
widers shoulders as a result.
I’d recommend performing these lifts 1 to 2 times per week each for 3 sets of about
8 to 12 reps.
So thanks for watching this video lesson.
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Talk to you again soon.