Dedicated to Your Physical Transformation
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…]
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…]
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…]
Q: I like the heavy/light approach you lay out in the Ultimate Power-Density Mass Workout 2.0. I also do [Mr. America] Doug Brignole’s Super TORQ for only one exercise per muscle every few workouts. Great change to gain! My question is, when I do TORQ, shouldn’t I use overhead presses for delts? In your TORQ routines and Brignole’s Super TORQ program, the shoulder exercise of choice is one-arm cable laterals. But you have heavy presses in the Power-Density programs, which aggravate my shoulder joint sometimes. Still, shouldn’t I do presses in my TORQ workouts? It’s the best shoulder exercise, right?
A: We have a love-hate relationship with presses—and Brignole’s is mostly hate (as we’ll explain)… [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: In 3D Muscle Building you have incline one-arm laterals or one-arm cable laterals as the stretch move for the side-delt head. Is one better than the other? They feel completely different to me, and I just want big round delts, so which is the best exercise?
A: Both provide resistance on the medial-delt head when the arm is across the front of the torso. You don’t get that with standard lateral raises because of gravity and your arm positioning—at the bottom of the stroke, your arms are perpendicular to the floor with delts resting (zero resistance).
[Read more…]Q: My girlfriend likes to critique my body when I ask. She’s got a good eye for proportion—and if I look good for her, I get the benefits, if you know what I mean—LOL. Lately, she’s been saying my shoulders are too flat. I need more roundness and broadness. What do you suggest?
A: When you think about it, most barbell and dumbbell shoulder exercises are lacking—inefficient to say the least, so you need a real delt-stretching combo to grow… [Read more…]
Q: In Positions-of-Flexion mass training you classify the one-arm cable lateral as a stretch-position exercise for the medial-delt head. But isn’t it really a stretch- and contracted-position exercises? There is resistance all the way through the stroke, so you get resistance at contraction [top] as well as at stretch.
A: You could classify one-arm cable laterals as both stretch and contracted, but it’s more of a stretch-position move because of the angle of pull. [Read more…]
Q: I’m using the full Positions-of-Flexion delt routine [from the 3D Muscle Building e-book], but my shoulders still suck. I do dumbbell upright rows (midrange), incline one-arm laterals (stretch), and standing laterals (contracted). I also do dumbbell presses after that and bent-over laterals [for rear delts]. I do two working sets for each exercise. I’m wondering if I should add more exercises and more sets. Or should I just train harder?
A: It sounds like you’re pretty frustrated, so you’re probably blasting your delts damned hard already. Training harder probably isn’t the solution.
How about increasing volume? A few more sets may produce more mass; however, before you go that route, which can sap recovery ability, we suggest you try some exercise manipulation… [Read more…]
Q: I have limited time to train, so I try to use the best exercise for each bodypart. Your Ultimate Mass Workout e-book has been priceless in that regard, and I’m using a version of the basic program you outline with the Ultimate Exercise for each bodypart. Most are right on, but I have a problem with my shoulders. They’re not responding to dumbbell upright rows [the Ultimate Exercise for delts discussed in Chapter 6]. Is there another exercise I can use?
A: First, check your form. You should be starting with the dumbbells almost at arm’s length with your palms facing your thighs and the inner ‘bells touching. That creates a pull on the medial-delt heads in the important semi-stretch position. As you pull the dumbbells up, your hands should move out so that at the top of the stroke they are outside of your outer chest and your upper arms are parallel to the floor. [Read more…]
