To build shoulder muscles that Hercules would be proud of, you have to start by reinforcing the foundations. Here’s how
To have any hope of building shoulders like a demigod you need to start deep down by reinforcing the foundations. But first, a quick anatomy lesson to understand why this approach is so important.
The shoulder joint is ball and socket arrangement, the only other one in your body being the hip. However, unlike the hip where the ball is positioned deep in the socket, there is more bone around it plus a resilient soft tissue surround, the shoulder has much less structural integrity.
This is great for range of motion, making it easy to overhead press, serve an ace and bowl the perfect leg break, but the cost is less stability, potentially reducing performance and increasing your injury risk.
A strong and healthy shoulder joint has to be stable and this is the job of a group of deep muscles you have probably already heard of, the rotator cuff. This consists of four muscles – supraspinatus, infraspinatus, subscapularis and teres minor, collectively responsible for rotating your arm outwards and the subscapularis which performs the opposite task, turning it inwards.
Their key role, however, is to work in harmony to ensure the head of your humerus remains in alignment with your shoulder blade during all upper arm movements, giving a platform for exerting force and ensuring it doesn’t ‘pop out’.
Try adding the following exercises to your shoulder routine to ramp up your rotator cuff and help to build delts to die for.
Internal rotation
Stand sideways on to a cable pulley at waist height, with elbow fixed at 90 degrees, hand out to the side, palm facing forwards. Keeping your body fixed and elbow in contact with your ribs at all times, draw the hand horizontally across your body in a semi-circular motion. Pause for a second, then return to the side. Now repeat on the other side.
External rotation
Lie on your side, legs stacked with knees slightly bent, holding a light dumbbell in your top hand with the arm resting against your side, forearm hanging down in front of your stomach. Keeping your elbow fixed to your side, lift the weight up toward the ceiling, pause, then slowly lower. Now repeat on the other side.
Straight arm pulldown
Using a cable machine, stand with feet hip width apart, a few strides back so your arms are straight and raised to about chest height and there is some tension in the cable. Keeping your arms straight, pull both hands down to the front of your thighs, hold for just a second, then return to the start position under control.
Cuban press
Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand, in front of your thighs, knuckles facing forwards. Begin by executing an upright row, bending the elbows to lift the weights up in front of and close to the body. At chest level, smoothly rotate the shoulders to bring the elbows under and take the weights back to in line with your ears.
Complete the exercise by now pushing both arms overhead, keeping your core engaged, then slowly lower the dumbbells to the start position.
Wall slide
Stand close to and facing a wall with your elbows bent to 90 degrees, forearms on the wall at shoulder height and your fingers pointing up. Slowly slide your forearms up toward the ceiling and gently push your forearms into the wall. Hold briefly at the top, then return to the starting position.
