How to Get Bigger Shoulders

Having big shoulders will make you appear wider and more masculine, something that many men strive for. Building up your shoulders can take time, especially if you have a small frame, but it's by no means impossible. The best way to train them is by incorporating several shoulder exercises into a difficult workout routine. Your shoulders are a relatively large muscle group that take a while to recover, so you should only hit them one or two times a week in order to give them ample time to rest.

Before learning what exercises to use, I want to go over the different parts of the shoulder. You have the anterior deltoid, which is situated at the front of the shoulder. This muscle is mainly used to bring the arms inward toward the chest and to lift the arms when at the sides with biceps facing up. The lateral deltoid, located on the side of the shoulder, is used for lifting the arms when at the sides and held at a neutral position. Gaining mass in this area will make you appear wider. The posterior deltoid is located in the back and is used to pull the arms back.

When working your shoulders, you'll want to hit all three of the main muscle fibers. You can do this with a series of exercises, although compound lifts will be most effective in building overall mass in your delts. One of the best shoulder exercises is the military press, which will put a tremendous amount of stress on both the lateral and anterior deltoids. This is the ultimate shoulder exercise and should make up at least one part of your routine. Similar lifts like the shoulder and arnold press can replace the military press. The main benefit of the shoulder press is a longer range of motion, whereas the arnold press will place additional stress on the lateral deltoids. For your posterior deltoids, you might want to focus on the various forms of rows. The t-bar and barbell rows are probably two of the best compound lifts for the posterior deltoids.

If you want to isolate the different fibers, you can use more specific exercises. For the lateral deltoids, I suggest doing lateral raises and upright rows. Be careful when doing upright rows, though, as they can put a ton of stress on your rotator cuffs. Consider doing the cuban press as an alternative, as it will increase the strength of your rotator cuffs while building up the lateral deltoids.

The only exercise that really isolates the anterior deltoids is the front raise, which I don't really suggest. This part of your shoulder gets plenty of work from the military press and bench press, so there's really no reason to isolate unless it's lagging and you're a bodybuilder.

For the posterior deltoid, you can do rear delt raises with a barbell. To perform this little-known exercise, you place the barbell behind your back and lift it up by pulling the shoulders back and letting your elbows flex out. This exercise will also place stress on your brachioradialis due to the reverse grip being used. Another exercise that you can look into is the rear delt fly, which is essentially a normal fly but with your stomach facing down. I suggest trying both of these exercises as the back of your shoulder is often underworked, which can lead to shoulder instability and a slew of problems.