How is your deltoid development, have you thought about that lately? If
the answer is not as good as it should be, you are not alone and
following the usual methods may never get you there if you are a natural
bodybuilder with average genetics.
shoulder workout
Lets examine the usual
methods, split routines, training the biggest body part first in a given
workout, starting each muscle group with the basic multi-joint
exercises followed by the so called isolation/shaping movements, doing
lower reps on multi-joint exercises and higher reps on isolation
exercise, three to four sets per exercise of three to four exercises per
muscle group, trying to use as heavy of poundages as possible in
questionable form, training each muscle group twice a week.
Lets
take split routines, they were invented to break the body into separate
groups of muscle to be able to give greater attention to just a few
muscle groups at a given workout while you are fresh because it would be
impossible to do three to four sets per exercise of three to four
exercises per muscle group in one workout and give them all equal effort
and intensity, if you did chest, back, shoulders, arms, abs, legs, and
calves in one workout using this protocol you would end up doing seventy
two to one hundred and thirty two sets in a single workout.
So
the theory being that some muscles are trained while others get a rest
works ok with a upper body/lower body split but not so good for a
push/pull split, when do the deltoids, shoulder and elbow joints get to
rest? These areas are used with equal involvement in both push and pull
exercises, they are the middle links between the torso muscles and the
hands, there is no getting around this fact. To train back a day or two
after chest or vise verse subjects the deltoids and joints to stress
before they have had a chance to recover and it is during recovery that
muscles grow, not while training them.
Training breaks them down and if they are constantly being trained where is their chance to compensate and grow?
Next
lets look at the practice of training the biggest muscle group to the
smallest in a given grouping of muscles in a workout. This rule applies
with torso before arm training for the obvious reason that tiring out
your arm muscles before chest or back will result in not being able to
train chest and back hard enough because the arm muscles being smaller
and weaker will tire out even sooner than normal, but this is not the
case with shoulders, they can be carried to greater levels of intensity,
being pulled along by the larger, stronger torso muscles.
Next
is notion of starting each muscle group with a basic multi-joint
exercise followed by more isolated exercises. This is a good idea for
someone starting out seeking overall size and strength but you quickly
find the strongest muscles or parts of muscles developing at the expense
of the smaller ones, thick front delts, the outer/lower pecs, upper
lats, the inner calves and inner biceps, the inner and long head of the
triceps, the upper half of the thighs, leaving the middle and rear
delts, the inner and upper pecs, the lower lats and middle back, the
outer calves and biceps, the lateral head of the triceps, the adductor
and tear drop muscles of the inner lower thigh barely touched giving the
body an incomplete unfinished lopsided look and following the crude
basic movements with light isolation exercises is a waste of time and
energy as if some how you can shape the weak areas with enough intensity
to cause any real effect with light localized training after the fact.
Next
the theory of using lower reps on big basic movements and higher reps
on isolation exercises. Well doing isolated exercises for reps of four
to six is certainly ill advised for sure because of the intense pull on
the ligaments and insertion points of the muscles when they are moving
through a inferior mechanical line of pull while higher reps tend to
pump more blood into the muscle and keep the muscles under tension for a
longer time but this doesn't equate to greater shape or definition,
that is more the effect of diet and genetics, though it is possible to
affect shape to a certain degree.
Now using low reps on big
compound movements will produce increases in size and strength but as
the pounds start to add up the risk of injury looms larger but it has
been proven that gains in size and strength can be obtained in
multi-joint exercises with reps as high as fifteen for the upper body
and as high as thirty for thighs and calves with far less risk of injury
and more time under tension and more blood being pumped into the
muscles.
Next is the accepted practice of three to four sets per
exercise of three to four exercises per muscle group. Have you ever
tried to do four sets to absolute failure for four exercises for back
followed by the same amount and intensity for traps, rear delts, and
biceps in a single workout? Can you say severe over training? And follow
this, even a few days later, with chest, front and side delts, and
triceps with the same volume and intensity, good luck getting the
deltoids to grow.
This is why there are so many pec, front
delt/rotator cuff, and bicep injuries, the severe overuse of the
deltoids, shoulder and elbow, joints the connective tissue, ligaments,
and insertion points are eventually overwhelmed and something gives way
due to the chronic overuse and under recuperated style of training.
Training
as heavy as possible in questionable form is a sure way to serious
injury and recommended only for the stupid, there are smarter, more
effective ways to get what you want without forever nursing some pain or
injury, pushing through the pain until the injury is chronic and you
end up training with lighter weights anyway but still with pain and at a
level of intensity less than you need to progress because pushing to
the limit even with light weights hurts too bad.
Save yourself
the pain and injury by losing the ego, sometimes training hard equals
training dumb if your definition of hard training only encompasses going
heavy, many a pro bodybuilder has learned that lesson the hard way,
cutting their careers short. Train smart not dumb.
Training each
muscle group twice a week. If you do, one of these workouts should be
lighter and sub maximal with higher reps and if you do the usual type
workout splits you are actually working some muscles, joints, ligaments,
and insertion points four times a week.
So what do you do when
it seems that most of the rules of training are counterproductive? Well
starting with split routines, if you must, split the body into an upper
body workout and a lower body workout, putting abdominals in either the
upper or lower body workout but not both and use a rotating workout
schedule training upper body on Mondays and Fridays and lower body on
Wednesday one week and lower body on Monday and Friday and upper body on
Wednesday the next week and just keep this rotating week to week with
Monday being your light workout whether it be upper or lower body,
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday being rest days.
As for
deltoids, most people don't know how to train them to good effect, they
usually overwork and under train them. Train them before chest and back
and start with the most isolated movement, follow them with
progressively more compound movements, and finish them off with a
compound movement, an example would be side lateral, then upright row,
then overhead barbell press, then chest training and bent laterals, then
bent arm reverse flys, then behind neck pulldowns, then back training.
Keep
reps in eight to twelve range for more time under tension and if you
carry every set to at least positive failure, one to two sets per
exercise of two to five exercises per muscle group will be sufficient
with more exercises for larger muscle groups such as back or thighs and
less for smaller ones such as biceps or hamstrings. As long as you do
delts before the larger chest and back muscles you maximize the limited
number of sets you do for them as the training effect is amplified by
the fresh larger muscles pushing the pre-fatigued muscles through the
rest of the workout at a level above what can be obtained by localized
isolation training done after training the larger muscles first, thus
capitalizing on the localized isolation effect and building on it
resulting in more intensity with less total sets.
Shoulder training
