For me, shoulders are one of my most stubborn body parts. I found it hard to progress and lift heavier weight in my shoulder workouts which obviously led to very little muscle growth. Since shoulders are one of the most impressive body parts to add slabs of muscle to you want to be blasting them shoulders hard and progressing in weight at every chance you have. If you’re like me and are currently finding it hard to build both strength and muscle in your shoulders let me give 3 top reasons why your shoulders are not growing:
You are neglecting the Barbell Overhead Press
The barbell overhead press is one of the most effective mass building shoulder movements you can do. If you can overhead press a lot of weight then you know you have some solid and well built shoulder muscles. If you are a beginner or just have really weak shoulder muscles then the chances are you will not be able to overhead press a lot of weight when you first perform this exercise.
No worries. First make sure you learn the correct form for the barbell overhead press by reading how to barbell shoulder press. Once you have the form down start off light and focus on using the correct form. Make the barbell overhead press the first exercise you perform in your shoulder workouts so you can give it 100%.
This will also be the exercise you can move the most weight with so putting it first in your routine makes more sense. I know a lot people like to perform the dumbbell press in their shoulder routines which is fine but in my opinion the overhead press stresses the muscle far better than a dumbbell press.
I am not saying the dumbbell press is useless, far from it, but by performing the overhead press instead of the dumbbell press I feel it a lot more in my shoulder muscles. The muscle feels like it’s worked harder and you can really feel the burn with this exercise when performed correctly.
If you want you can still perform the dumbbell press as the second exercise in your shoulder workout or temporarily substitute the overhead press for the dumbbell press once your progress has completely stalled.
You Are Not Adding Weight to the Bar
But my shoulders are weak I hear you say. Yes but they are weak because they have yet to be trained effectively for strength and muscle gains. Adding weight to the bar seems daunting at first but many people underestimate what they are capable of. That’s take the overhead press as an example. You go into the gym and plan to press say 50 pounds for 3 sets of 12.
Unfortunately you only manage to hit it for 3 sets of 8. Next week comes along and you hit 3 sets of 9. Great. Improvement is always good! The following week comes along and you can only manage to press the same weight for 3 sets of 9 again. OK maybe you had a bad workout. Another week goes by and you attempt the same weight for more reps. Again 3 sets of 9 is all you manage.
Some people will consistently stick with the same weight until they hit it for more reps before increasing weight. Before you know it 6 weeks have gone by and you’ve increased your press by 0 pounds and 3 reps. 3 reps! Is that a good increase over a period of 6 weeks? No. You will not build muscle this way. Here’s what I suggest you do. Cut your working sets down to one or two. Warm up sufficiently and add 5 pounds to the bar (or however much you want to start with).
Aim to lift this weight for 1-2 sets anywhere within the 6-8 rep range. If you manage to get 6-8 reps for your one or two working sets then next week you bump up the weight another 5 pounds and try and hit this rep range again. Keep adding weight and doing this until you fall out of the 6-8 rep range or the 5-8 rep range. By this time you should have added some decent weight to the bar over the weeks. Strip off 10-20lbs for the following week and work your way back up in weight. This is a great little technique to use to get stronger and add more weight to your lifts.
Drop Sets!
My third and final reason as to why your shoulders are not growing is because you are neglecting an extremely effective intensity booster! Drop sets! Drop sets will raise the intensity of your workouts and really exhaust the muscle. I’ve found drop sets to be particularly effective with shoulder exercises such as the barbell overhead press and lateral raises.
If your shoulders are becoming accustomed to the poundage your giving them each week then drop sets are sure to shake things up a little bit and place your shoulder muscles under a completely different kind of stress that their use to.
If you’re unfamiliar with drop sets then here’s how to implement them into your shoulder routine. Depending on how your current routine is structured drop sets are used at the end of your working sets by dropping down in weight for x amount of sets.
How many drop sets you use is entirely down to you but be warned they can be taxing on the body. A typical example of using drop sets for the barbell overhead press may look like this:
- Bar – 12 < warm up
- 30lbs – 5 < warm up
- 60lbs – 3 < warm up
- 80lbs – 8 < Working Set
- 80lbs – 6 < Working Set
- 60lbs – To Failure < Drop Set!!
- 50lbs – To Failure < Drop Set!!
At the end of the exercise you should be feeling a good burn (in a good way) in your muscles and they are likely to feel fatigued and drained. Give yourself a sufficient amount of time to recover from drop sets before you move onto your next exercise. 3 minutes would be a sensible amount.
Strong and well built shoulders are always an important part of a person’s physique. If you are struggling with your shoulder workouts take into account the above three points and you should be able to progress more consistently in your lifts and add more muscle and definition to your shoulders.
