Building Muscle - How to Get Broader Shoulders

Broad shoulders fill out clothes well and make your waist appear smaller. The secret to getting broad shoulders is to work every part of the shoulder. This includes the anterior deltoids, medial deltoids and posterior deltoids, which mean the front, side and rear respectively. You must work all three sections to get broader, balanced shoulders.

Another consideration is the effect your training has on your posture. Just building the front and sides of the shoulders with popular exercises like military presses causes a muscle imbalance. The anterior delts get stronger and pull your shoulders forward, which the weak posterior delts cannot prevent. This contributes to rounded shoulders. For the broadest shoulders possible, you need strong muscles of the upper back and posterior delts to pull your shoulders back.

Anterior Deltoids

The anterior deltoids performs four different motions. The main action is shoulder flexion to bring the upper arm forward. The anterior delt also abducts the shoulder away from the midline of the body, rotates the shoulder inwards and performs transverse flexions, which means to bring your arm toward the midline of your body in a horizontal position. Any exercise that makes these movements against resistance works the anterior deltoids, but a simple exercise to target this muscle is dumbbell shoulder flexion.

Dumbbell Flexion

Stand up tall and hold a pair of dumbbells against your quads with your arms straight. Your palms face your thighs. Then, raise your arms straight up until they are parallel to the floor. Do not lean backwards. Lower your arms back to your legs to complete one repetition.

Medial Deltoids

The medial delts, also called the lateral delts, flex and abduct your shoulder along with the anterior delts. They also abduct your shoulder away from your midline in a horizontal plane. Target the medial delts with lateral raises.

Lateral Raises

Stand up tall and hold your arms straight against your sides. Lift your arms up sideways until they are parallel to the floor and then lower them slowly back to your sides.

Posterior Deltoids

Posterior deltoids extend the upper arm backwards, rotate it outwards and horizontally abduct the shoulder. The best way to isolate this muscle is to use a rear deltoid machine, but you can also use a pec deck machine or resistance bands to perform the same action.

Rear Deltoid Machine

Sit on the machine facing the weight stack. Extend your arms straight forward and grip the handles palms down. Pull your arms out to the side and backwards without leaning back. Reverse the motion.

Shoulder Program

Train your shoulders three days a week on nonconsecutive days to increase muscle mass. You can train all three areas of your shoulders during each workout, but make sure you always do some exercise for your posterior deltoids.

For the best muscle building results, perform eight to 12 repetitions of each exercise. Three to four sets is ideal. Your delts should be completely fatigued on your last rep of each set. Using weight that is so heavy you have to rest for even a few seconds during a set sabotages your progress. Also, never elevate your shoulders.


Fitness guru Zoltan Bundler writes regularly on the topic of building muscle on his site [http://how-to-bulk-up.com]. For a free copy of his short no fluff report "Secrets to Bulking Up Fast Without the Fat" go straight to Secrets of Bulking Up [http://how-to-bulk-up.com] then click on the photo. © 2011 Zoltan Bundler All Rights Reserved

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