Great Shoulders?

A "selfie", taken in the summer on the deck at home.  Hair salty from a swim in the sea, and a glass of cold wine - I may bang on about being healthy, but there is moderation in all things!  Following posting this on Facebook, I got lots of comments about the shoulders.  So, here is a shoulder workout that you can do to get tone and definition. It is extremely hard to get bulk in the upper body for females, so please don’t be worried – getting size involves diet changes and lifting in a specific way. This work out will give you great shape and tone, will improve posture and balance out your body. Enjoy the workout, and even a glass of wine when you are done :)

Shoulders – have two main areas to work, the big Trapezius muscle and then the smaller deltoids. There are others which join in, but we will only be looking at these as the prime movers. 

1.Upright row – use a bar or a heavish weight on an upright row machine. Although you can do this with dumbbells, I find that you get a better response with a heavier weight and a bar is easier to manage than dumbbells. If the dumbbells are of sufficient weight I often find them too big for my hands and I get cramp. But if you prefer dumbbells then please aim for heavy ones.  Wide stance with feet, narrow grip with hands (extend your thumbs to touch and then tuck them under the bar). Stand with amazing posture to get that line of gravity through the top of the shoulders. Lift the bar up under the chin, and lift the elbows high – you should be showing your armpits at this point. Lower with control to the starting position without letting the weight drop heavily. Brace/tighten the core as you do this, and a heavy breath out when it starts getting tough. Aim for 10 – 15 reps max.

2.Bent over rows – if you can, stay with bar here. Narrow squat position. Squat a little (look over the cliff position) and keep the bar dead against your thighs, row or draw the bar up to your body – aim for the space between the belly button and pubic bone. Brace the core. Use the shoulders here - not arms – and draw the shoulder blades together.  Lower with control to knees. Aim again for the 10-15 reps.

3.Flys – you stay in the forward row position (please don’t do these exercises next to each other as your core will tire and your back will suffer). Using dumbbells, lift both arms out to the side again think like angel’s wings, and draw shoulder blades together. Lift your head a little as if you are peeping over the top of your sunglasses.

4.Shoulder Press – you can do this with Bar or dumbbells, and I would recommend that you do this exercise with both. I have written a programme below, so you will repeat this with both bar and belles. Split stance like a calf stretch, even lift onto the toes on the back leg if you want to stabilise further or help your back. Get the bar to your shoulders - hands in line with shoulders and press weight above your head - brace your core and breathe out. Aim for 10 – 15 reps. The position is similar with dumbbells but you have a different range of movement, so take the arms more in an arc position – do one set with palms facing towards each other and another set with the palms facing towards the mirror as you are looking at yourself.

5.Lateral Raise – change to dumbbells here. Wide stance and fab posture.  Bring the dumbbells in front of your body to start with, bend elbows slightly, then lift out to shoulder height keeping a slight bend in the elbow – think of like wings – pull the shoulder blades down as you do that. Lower with control to starting position. There should be a degree of effort involved when lifting this – so don’t have light dumbbells.  If you can do more than 20 then change to a heavier weight. You want to know you are lifting something significant.

6.Forward Raise. Same stance as Lateral but hold the dumbbells against your leg with palms towards your thighs. Lift arm directly in front of you one at a time – try not to lean but think about the shoulder blade pulling down the back. Lower and repeat. If you can, try both dumbbells, and then try lifting higher than head.

When training, do shoulders every other day and mix and match the exercises. ALWAYS have amazing posture, work until the muscle burns, rest then repeat at least 3 times. You should work till you find it tough. If this is doing loads of reps, then up your weights. Aim for 10 -1 5 reps. Don’t be surprised at how wimpy your arms are in the beginning! Up your protein intake, up your water, drop some body fat to be able to see the definition