Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
Yesterday I discussed the one-arm cable delt pull, a hybrid front raise-lateral raise with a low cable.
I’m experimenting with it as an add-on move after the ideal medial-head exercise, striving for new shoulder roundness and fullness.
It puts the medial head in the high contracted position similar to [Read more…]
Yesterday I discussed how, after using only the incline one-arm lateral and one-arm cable lateral for a while, the ideal medial-delt-head exercises, my shoulders had decent detail but remained somewhat flat.
I needed more roundness, a “cap” on my shoulders… [Read more…]
The kids were over again to bathe their dog Kingston in our outdoor shower. He’s a big, ferocious-looking Doberman-esque breed, but gentle as a teddy bear—even with our two terrier terrorists, one of which is a growling alpha nut job.
They are always ready for my go-to question (the kids, not the dogs): “So how are your workouts going?” [Read more…]
Rounder delts can make you look wider and your waist look narrower. That’s two aesthetic reasons to get shoulder training right, especially the side head that’s most responsible for those two effects. [Read more…]
My daughter and her future husband were over for dinner, and after talking about our dogs, they veered into my favorite subject: training. [Read more…]
Learning how to train properly and efficiently for the best mass gains is an evolutionary process…
Even so, you can work out for years thinking you’re on the right track and then—Boom!—an epiphany wakes you up. [Read more…]
Q: In many of your workouts, you suggest forward-lean laterals. What are those, and why should I use them instead of regular standing lateral raises [for medial-delt-head mass]?
A: The deltoid is a unique muscular structure. It controls the movement around a ball-and-socket joint, so the fibers wrap around the area in bundles, moving in many directions. You can see that in this photo of Jonathan… [Read more…]
Arnold was revered for his arms, particularly his sky-high biceps—but check out Arnold’s delts in the photo below. They were really popping that day. [Read more…]
Q: I have flat shoulders. I do lots of sets of dumbbell presses, but they aren’t helping. Should I try doing lateral raises first in my shoulder workout?
A: We both have to fight and do everything right to sculpt our delts into round mounds of muscle so we don’t suffer from flat shoulders. One thing we’ve learned is that overhead presses—for us, anyway—tend to put almost all of the stress on our front deltoids, and those front heads don’t add to the roundness you’re after… [Read more…]
Q: I like the idea of doing dumbbell upright rows first as the midrange movement for shoulders [as recommended in the 3D Muscle Building e-book]. I just have trouble feeling the X Reps at the end after I reach exhaustion. Should I just do a drop set instead?
A: As we explained in the last e-zine, drop sets are better for continuous tension/occlusion exercises—contracted-position moves like laterals for delts, leg extensions for quads, etc. You’re looking to maximize force production with the big midrange exercise, so X Reps is the best choice…
[Read more…]
