How to Build Shoulder Muscles for a Bigger Bench Press
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Although the shoulders are often overlooked by weight lifters, they play a pretty meaningful role in one of the most common exercises around. Without strong shoulders, you are not maximizing your bench press potential. Not only are you cutting yourself short on the bench, failing to train shoulders will make you more susceptible to injury as well. Today I am going to show you how to build shoulder muscles for an explosive bench press.
Which deltoid head is the most important when aiming to increase your bench press?
We’ll its quite simple and you’ve probably already guessed it. The anterior deltoid or front shoulder head is the muscle head that aids in a “pushing” movement.
But what about controlling the weight in an eccentric movement?
Well, that’s when the posterior deltoid comes into play. Strengthening the rear shoulder head will help when bringing down the bar.
Then we have the mid deltoid or middle shoulder head which is the main abductor at the “shoulder joint”. Training mid delts will aid in strengthening both the posterior deltoid and anterior deltoid.
So….how to build FRONT shoulder muscles to increase your bench press
There are a few common and not so common shoulder workouts that target the front deltoid. Some of these exercises include:
- Dumbbell Front Raises
- Barbell Front Raises
- Cable Front Raises
- Incline Bench Front Raises
- And Arnold Presses
How to build rear shoulder muscles to help control the weight
Next is the anterior deltoid, this shoulder head can be targeted with workouts like:
- Bent over dumbbell laterals
There are a few different variations of this exercise. The main one is performed by standing; another is done by sitting at the edge of a bench and bending over, and the other is done up against a wall as seen in the video below.
How to build mid shoulder muscles for strengthening the front and rear shoulders
Mid deltoid exercises typically train all three heads at once. This shoulder head is best when trained with:
- Dumbbell Presses
- Military press
That my friend is how to build shoulder muscles to blast your bench! Strengthen those deltoids for increased power, control, and injury avoidance. I’ll leave you with a very basic shoulder workout video that you beginners can use to build shoulder muscles from home with just a set of dumbbells.
I hope you enjoyed this tidbit of (hopefully) useful information. If you found this at all helpful, please click the “like” button below to spread the word.
June 10th, 2011 at 6:40 pm
[...] region will assist with strengthening the other two groups of deltoids. So how do you start to build shoulder muscles so you can increase the bench press weight? Believe it or not, there are already many workouts that [...]
July 6th, 2011 at 2:56 am
I USUALLY DO A DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS INSTEAD OF THE BAR,(FLAT, INCLINE, DECLINE) WOULD THIS TECHNIQUE HELP TO INCREASE
July 6th, 2011 at 3:12 am
Dumbbell workouts do have their benefits. However, I would recommend you mix it up between both rather than only sticking to one technique. The dumbbell workouts will allow you to work the stabilizer muscles. The barbell is a compound workout that will help increase overall strength.