The key to building and strengthening your delts is to treat your shoulders better.
Your shoulders can move within a huge range of motion, and they’re more likely to get injured than other areas because there are so many different movement patterns that can occur. If you don’t take preventive measures, it can set you back with injuries and the time off you’ll have to take.
When you focus solely on hypertrophy (muscle growth) without any consideration for the stabilizing muscles, you careen down a path to instability, asymmetry and eventually injury. The more muscle you pack on your frame and the more weight you can lift, the more you need these vital stabilizers. Neglecting these smaller muscles is akin to framing a house before you pour the foundation: One stiff wind and your entire project will fold.
To get started on that foundation, you have to perform some exercises that initially will seem rather foreign. Unless you’re an advanced lifter, you’ve likely never done any direct shoulder-stability work, so be prepared for things to be a tad awkward at first.
When your results start to improve with these movements, however, so will your ability to execute every other shoulder exercise — along with your chest and back moves. Your size and strength will increase rapidly as a direct result of your improved coordination and newfound capacity for staying pain- and injury-free.
THE WORKOUT
| EXERCISE | SETS | REPS |
| Scapular Wall Slide | 3 | 15 |
| Scapular Push-Up | 3 | 15 |
| Standing Dumbbell Alternating Arnold Press | 3 | 12 |
| Staggered-Stance Lateral Raise | 3 | 12 |
| Dumbbell Squat/Clean Press | 3 | 12 |
HOW TO DO IT
Perform the full workout above twice a week, on shoulder day in your training split. The stabilization exercises, however, can be performed more frequently. For example, work them in at the beginning of your chest and back workouts to enhance your range of motion, increase joint stability and strengthen weak areas in your shoulders’ stabilizing muscles. To increase the degree of difficulty, superset the stabilization exercises, then tri-set the three conventional dumbbell moves.
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