Your shoulders are made up from three major muscles---your anterior deltoids located on the front of your shoulder, your medial deltoid located to the side and your posterior deltoid located on the rear of your shoulder. There are a number of strategies you can employ to maximize the effect of your shoulder workouts.
Use a Variety of Shoulder Exercises
Your shoulder joints are capable of a wide variety of movements including flexion, extension, abduction and rotation. To develop your shoulders to their fullest potential, perform a variety of exercises to work your shoulders from numerous angles. By using a variety of exercises and not becoming overly reliant on one or two favorites, you are more likely to develop well-rounded, healthy and strong shoulder joints.
Focus On the Muscle
Some shoulder exercises, in particular overhead presses using barbells or dumbbells, lend themselves to lifting relatively heavy loads. Heavy loads develop strength, but may cause you to use sloppy lifting technique, which actually reduces the amount of work being performed by the target muscle. Use a weight that is challenging but is not so heavy you have to use your legs to cheat and jerk the weight overhead. Good form reduces the risk of injury when performing exercises for your shoulders and also increases the effectiveness of these movements.
Avoid Behind the Neck Exercises
Unless you have superior shoulder joint flexibility, lowering the bar behind your neck when performing pressing exercises increases your risk of suffering a shoulder joint injury. Although a common site in many gyms, lowering the bar behind your neck offers no real advantages to lowering the bar to the front or using dumbbells. Instead, lowering the bar behind your neck places a significant stress on the deep shoulder stabilizer muscles called your rotator cuff, which, if injured, can take a long time to recover and may even require surgery.
Perform Shoulder 'Prehab' Exercises
Your shoulder joints are prone to injury. To reduce your risk of suffering any problems you should include "prehab" exercises as a regular part of your workouts. Prehab --- a play on the term rehab --- describes a type of exercise performed to prevent injuries. Prehab exercises include rotator cuff training, shoulder stability exercises, postural exercises and stretching. A few moments spent on prehab could save months of rehab should you suffer a shoulder injury.
Use a Spotter
Shoulder exercises such as dumbbell overhead presses and barbell presses are inherently dangerous. If you lose control of the weights while they are above your head, it is possible that they might fall and hit your head. Avoid this happening to you by having a spotter nearby who can offer assistance if you should experience difficulties while exercising. A spotter also can offer encouragement and technique guidance.
References
- "Anatomy of Exercise: A Trainer's Inside Guide to Your Workout"; Pat Manocchia; 2009
- "Designing Resistance Training Programs"; Steven Fleck and William Kraemer; 2003
- "Fundamental Weight Training"; David Sandler; 2010
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