The ONLY 2 Exercises That Grew My Narrow Shoulders

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How to get wider shoulders? With so many shoulder exercises out there, it’s hard to know which ones actually work. But the truth is, you’re probably doing too many and focusing on the wrong areas. In fact, after cutting out all the fluff from my shoulder workout and focusing on just 2 science-backed exercises that target my side delts, my shoulders grew bigger and wider than they’ve ever been. And with the right form, you too will achieve the broad shoulders of your dreams.

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What makes shoulders look wide and gives you that classic V-comes down to just one main region. The side delts. But most people do way too much pressing exercises. Do this for long enough, and your shoulders will become overdeveloped in the front, lacking the width that truly makes them stand out. Fixing this imbalance is simple. It just requires a shift in focus.

As for what exercises to focus on, the best option is lateral raises. But not all lateral raises are created equal. Take dumbbell lateral raises, for example. They challenge your delts most at the top. Ironically, this is where your delts are weakest. As a result, you’re forced to use lighter weights than they can really handle. But that’s not the only downside: there’s growing evidence that exercises providing a greater stretch, and challenging your muscles in that stretched position, may lead to better growth. Dumbbell lateral raises don’t do either of those. So, how do we fix this? Well, this brings us to exercise 1 of our shoulder exercises.

First, lock your elbow into your side and rotate your arm outward. Where your arm naturally stops is the optimal arm path for lateral raises. This means the “best” lateral raise is one where your arm can move behind your body to maximize the stretch. Cables are the perfect tool for this. By setting the cable at a slightly raised position rather than at the very bottom, you can immediately shift the challenge to the beginning of the movement where your side delts are the most stretched. You can do this single-arm or double-arm, depending on your preference. That said, if you’re a beginner, this exercise might feel a bit tricky to master in your shoulder workout, especially the double-arm version.

Don’t worry. You have other options. One option is to first do a normal set of dumbbell lateral raises. Then, immediately after you can’t do anymore full reps, grab a pair of 5lb heavier dumbbells and perform partial reps just in the bottom range. Another option is to try the “lean-in” dumbbell lateral raise.

While the first exercise focused on the main part of your side delt, there’s more to your shoulders than meets the eye. Muscle activation research suggests that your shoulders might have up to 7 different heads, all of which can be independently activated by your nervous system. This means that small adjustments to your lateral raise technique can work areas of your side delts that you’ve probably never hit before.

One area, in particular, that often gets neglected is the rear portion of the side delt. So how do you target it? So, first, for cables, start by setting the cable at wrist height. Grab the cable in front of your arm. Next, take a few steps to the side and rotate your body about 45 degrees toward the cable. From here, raise your arm in a straight line away from the cable.

As for the dumbbell version, first set up a bench just one notch down from vertical. Support your chest against the bench, let your arms hang straight down in front of you, and then raise them out to your sides.

But before you jump into these 2 exercises in your haste to build broad shoulders, there’s one key principle you need to apply. A small increase, like 5 lbs on dumbbells or moving a pin down on cables, can be the equivalent of adding 40 lbs to your bench press. So when you think you’re ready to increase the weights, as soon as you do, your form breaks down. Leaving you stuck doing the same weights forever.

But here’s the good news: research shows you can build muscle either by adding more weight or by doing more reps. This opens up a smarter way to progress. Here’s what I do. I stick to a broad rep range of 10-20 reps. Once I can perform at least 15 controlled reps across all my sets, I’ll bump up the weight. But when I’m using cables, where even one pin heavier can be too much, I’ll use a simple hack—grabbing a 5 lb or even a 2.5 lb plate and sticking the pin through it to make much smaller jumps.

Lastly, the final piece of learning how to get wider shoulders is understanding the best way to program these 2 exercises into your workout routine. I’d suggest doing 4-5 sets of each but splitting them up across different days to give your delts enough recovery time before hitting them again.
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**IMPORTANT: any lateral raise is better than none. Do the one you’ll do most often. If that’s dumbbells at home, do it.

sandstorm
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A book that changed my life in ways that I never could imagine is "Secret Testosterone Nexus of Evolution".Drop whatever you're doing right now and go find that book. Trust me after I implemented things from the book my testosterone levels went beast mode

gymenjoyer-yq
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Holy shit. I just realized how many subs Jeremy has and how consistently he's getting a crazy amount a views. A natty finally getting what they deserve. Dude's been in the YT fitness game for a while putting in work consistently, nothing but respect. I started watching this guy back around 2017 when I was first getting into fitness

ZugZug
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8:22 you can also grab a small dumbbell (1-3 kg) and put it across the weight stack to slowly progress

palpatar
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Been lifitng for over 20 years but always seem to garner some sort of new and super valuable info from every one of your videos. Great content brother. Your success is well deserved.

kwitel
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Adjusting the cable higher for more resistance not only works much better, but the results definitely improve as well. I seen this from Mike Israetel a few months ago and I’ve never stopped doing them on my push days. Your content is very informative and helpful, thank you.

AnabolicGlutes
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Man you been going hard these past 7 years this channel has grown crazy! Congrats on all of your success

jonahware
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My favorite lateral raise is laying on a bench with crossed cables. The added stability makes it feel more comfortable for me.
Admittedly I have this version from a Dave Bautista video, but it helped me as a beginner to intermediate lifter to really connect with my side delts.

freshdachs
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Jeremy is my number one trainer, and support

alanjohnson
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Thank you for having me Jeremy! Our study will be pre printed soon; keep an eye on my channel for an in depth breakdown of several studies we have in the works

WolfCoaching
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Doing lateral raises with higher frequency + Volume is what did the trick for me.

Ashlyn_
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Honestly, getting seriously strong on the OHP and pulling movements is what made my shoulders grow. Lateral raises are just the icing of the cake, the real cake is getting damn good on repeating the same basic shit over and over again while being better at it.

engr.tonystark
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*Been following this guy's videos since the start of my fitness journey. his animations are next level!"*

arag-cusub
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Honestly bro much improved, your width has improved for sure over the years, I find personally hitting rear delts a lot make them pop as well, it seems like shoulders can take a lot of punishment, ive found high and low rep ranges combined on lateral rises help mine a lot. Always like your content!!!

bennelson
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That's insane i really love how informative your videos are and scientifically explained 👌👌👌

chimchana
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Doing cable lateral raises using a V-bar does the trick for me. It allows me to lift significantly more weight while maintaining a strict form. Grab the handle through the other handle in a way that the other handle rest on your forearm (i don't know how to word it properly) which will allow you to push the weight from forearm.

pbkimblee
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Great information. I just can't bring myself to not do overhead press first when I training shoulders. You should do a video on addiction to doing big compound movements while resisting the isolation bodybuilding movements your physique really need.

psmtz
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I recently tried lateral raises with kettlebells instead of dumbells and the movement felt much better and natural

joseluisluna
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Bro the Trick where you explain "Hot to find your Scapular angle" is nice as fuck!! what a game Changer for me. Can you please produce a Video where you explain all these trick for every big exercises? i think this would help a lot of people to optimize their Training and prevent many injuries !!! Great Work this sh11t here !! whish you the best and your crew

clownface
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Ha that's cool that you're doing that study at UBC with Cam! (I'm a prof there) Good luck--I'll be keen to see how it turns out

deeshmond