The first important key was to make sure you not skip the overhead press when you are trying to grow bigger shoulders. This is the key compound movement for the delts and the one that is most effective for packing on size and strength to the entire shoulder girdle. That said, it is not uncommon for someone that is very skinny to lack the strength to perform the barbell version of the OHP initially.
That’s ok, simply start with dumbbells. The advantages of the dumbbell overhead press are that they help you to overcome any muscle or strength imbalances that may exist between the right and left arms that often times gets hidden by the bar. They also help to teach you how to get the elbows out slightly in front of the body rather than pointed straight out to the side which can help improve the safety of the exercise for your shoulders. Finally, as mentioned, given that the barbell weighs 45 lbs, the minimum strength requirement needed to press it would be 22.5 pounds in each hand of a dumbbell press. If you don’t have that strength just yet, start with the lighter dumbbells and build up from there.
Now, when it comes to the OHP, you want to be sure that you’re not expecting huge strength increases quickly. This happens to be one of the slowest moving exercises when it comes to seeing big jumps in strength. That’s ok and to be expected. As long as you are informed about this and take your smaller jumps up in weight on the bar, you will steadily and surely build bigger shoulders just from overloading this one exercise.
That said, when you do seem to plateau on this lift, the second big thing you are going to want to do is remember to include the push press in your shoulder workout as well. This shoulder exercise enables you to involve the lower body to help generate some momentum to drive the bar up when the strength of the shoulders alone isn’t enough. Soon, after a consistent use of this exercise, you’ll be able to increase your top end strict press weights from the mere exposure to the heavier weights that can’t be lifted if no push press is used in the first place.
Next, you want to be sure that you are taking advantage of the stretch reflex to grow bigger shoulders. The unique thing about shoulder exercises more than any other is that you intentionally have to seek out the stretch on the exercise. None of the standardly performed exercises do a good job of placing the delts in a stretch position. Altering the way you perform your shoulder front raises and lateral raises can instantly help you to activate this reflex and do a better job recruiting the size building fibers of the delt muscles.
Of all the mistakes that hardgainers and skinny guys make when they are trying to build bigger shoulders is focusing only on the front and middle head of the delts. The rear delts are possibly the most responsible for rounding out the appearance of the shoulders when viewed from the side. Not only do you want to remember to perform rear delt exercises on shoulder or push day, you want to be sure to include ones on pull day too.
The seated cable row with a straight bar and the face pull are both great ways to hit this head of the delts.
Finally, making sure to not only seek out heavy weights as a way to overload the shoulders in your shoulder workout but also to max out the tension on the delts is key. Things that keep continuous tension on the delts like a plate circuit finisher or exercises that drive focused tension through the delts like the one and a half lateral raise or hip hugger, are all ways to make the delts to more of the work and get them to finally respond and grow to your shoulder workout.
If you’re looking for a step by step program for building bigger shoulders and a ripped athletic body, follow the plan that Jesse used by heading to athleanx.com via the link below and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Every workout and meal is laid out in a step by step fashion to make sure that there is no guesswork along the way to a new you.
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