Join date: Jan 2005
Location: California, USA
Posts: 12546
Does anyone have specific movements for getting bigger rhomboids? I'm having trouble with the bar rolling off my back during squats, and I'm pretty sure thicker rhomboids will help.
rrjc5488 wrote:
Does anyone have specific movements for getting bigger rhomboids? I'm having trouble with the bar rolling off my back during squats, and I'm pretty sure thicker rhomboids will help.
Seriously though... Plenty of heavy rear delt (try face pulls in the lat-pulldown, leaning back far enough and using either a long straight bar or, better, a bar which allows a wide-ish neutral grip... Mike Wolfe style: http://www.wannabebig.com/...ing/wolfe14.jpg
and upper back work (scap retraction as main part of each rowing rep), rack pulls with retraction after each lockout... Shrugs with DB's or BB bent-forward at the hip joints to some degree (not too much, we're not talking parallel or anything like that here, more like 75 deg or so) so that you can turn it into sort of a retraction exercise ?
Doing several of the above and getting strong on them I can't see how you'd still have trouble keeping the bar in place. Hope that helps.
Lots of direct rear delt work imo helps width as well... And your bench setup and shoulder health...
Some lateral raise machines are so great they beat everything else you can do for shoulder width (as I recently mentioned elsewhere)... Unfortunately I've only gotten my hands on one fairly recently.
Presses and DB/Cable laterals etc are no comparison, in terms of developing width imo.
One thing I noticed: Routines which focus on maximum weight/mass gain in the shortest amount of time (BBB, DC 2-way variant, many TBT and 2-way splits and even 3-ways) seem to cause size gains more in the thighs, torso and front delts than the side and rear delts and upper chest.
BBB in particular is also great for the arms... But with all those routines /in all those cases (I'm talking drug free, average genetics guys not doing site injections or having great delt genetics), width isn't emphasized... It's basically just "gain as much mass as possible in the time-frame, no matter where, maximum lbm gain, numbers wise".
Not sure if that is so great for natties... You're not going to compete at 250+ as a drug free guy of average height, so if you get to the advanced stage and you're sort of lacking in the shoulder width, upper chest/delt tie in, arm and backwidth department... You're sort of lacking in the areas which are supposed to be stand-out parts of a bodybuilder, no? And it's not like you're still going to gain another 15 lbs of contest weight anytime soon just centered on your arms, delts and lats...
I personally think the best thing you can do for your shoulders as a bodybuilder and to get that "looking huge and wide even in loose clothes"-look (other than finding a good lateral raise machine) is to specialize in them for 1-2 years or longer (I don't really like those 3/week short-term spec routines for shoulders). That and focusing on upper chest and traps and tris as well for some time.
My fav exercises:
Presses (i.e. almost all front delts, even when pressing with flared elbows side delt size gains are imo negligible if we're talking "stand-out shoulder width", and there's practically no real rear delt in here at all):
-SHIPs
-various HS shoulder presses
-Power Squat machine Push Press
-Seated DB High Incline (i.e. most would call this seated DB military... Seat a notch or two below vertical)
-Seated BB HI Presses
Side and rear delts:
-some lateral machines (side), absolute king for side delts... You get plenty of crappy machines though unfortunately.
-Face Pulls in lat-pulldown leaning back, Mike Wolfe style with wide neutral grip (rear and side, I find that almost every rear delt exercise with elbows flared = significant side delt/hind-portion of side delt involvement). These can be done very explosively and even for moderate or lower reps if necessary.
-Face Pulls with Long Rope attachment (some "long" rope attachments are really too short for this), most comfortable for me when gripping the ropes so that the knobs are on the thumb side of the hands... This is not a regular face pull, but involves an external rotation.
-Reverse Pec Deck (rear and some side)
-Bent-Over laterals... I used to hate these because I did them with a conventional deadlift stance and I simply can't keep my back straight then (the upper portion of my quads gets in the way or maybe my hip joints don't have that much frontal ROM or something...)... Now I do them with a medium sumo stance or even a wide sumo. One can rest the 'bells on the ground for dead stop reps, may need an aerobic step or something like that though for short-armed/long-legged guys.
I don't necessarily do them dead stop like that, but it does seem to work pretty well. Can go real heavy on those (just make sure you actually manage to bring your shoulder blades together/shoulders back at the top, there's no point in just doing these with constantly rounded shoulders due to the weight being too heavy).
100's for reps is entirely doable here even if you don't weigh 280.
-I don't care much for regular laterals. Whether done with almost straight arms and no body English or not, they don't really give me the results a good lateral machine provides.
If I do them, then mostly to lower chest height or so and with a nice bend in the elbows at the top... Sort of a "power lateral" motion, i.e. mix of lateral and DB upright row if that makes sense.
I don't see regular laterals being great at all for long-armed people...
Rows etc gave me some rear delt size, but never that "bodybuilder rear delt" look... And I use them as backthickness exercises anyway.
Another thing... I'm going to try out doing more than just one rear delt exercise in my routines now.
Most people do either none or just one per shoulder session... I wonder how doing more will affect the way my shoulders look... Going to stick with bent-over laterals (dead stop perhaps, or dead stop every other session) and Wolfe Face Pulls as well as Rope face pulls with ext. rotation... And maybe high pulley standing rear "laterals"(?) as an iso exercise...
Plan is to do side and rear on chest day, and then on actual delt day. Previously I would do 2 full shoulder days (a press in both), but I no longer think that a press is necessary both times unless strength is lacking...
So this would look something like:
Chest (+side/rear delts)
-Low Incline exercise (DB? If BB, then heavy low-rep)
-HS Incline machine
-Pec Deck I guess...
-Wolfe Face Pulls
-Rope Face Pulls w. Ext. Rotation? Or rev. Pec Deck...
sometime later that week:
Delts (I don't do any shrugs atm because I'm still pulling sumo twice a week on back and leg day with different intensities... Might cut back on the sumo pulling though)
-Some overhead press, no idea what yet. Might even do the higher incline HS machine here because I'm really looking for more clavicular-pec thickness and a thicker pec/delt tie-in... Plenty of front delt size and strength already.
-Bent-Over Laterals... Dead stop maybe, or not...
-Lateral Machine
-Wolfe Face Pulls or one-arm high pulley st. upright rear delt "laterals"
Something like that. 1-2 top sets per exercise, trying to get as strong as possible, explosive positives, blahblah, the usual crap.
-Seated shoulder press.
-Gironda dumbell swings supersetted with Lateral raises (don't have lateral machine in my gym, I think, with my limited experience, that the Gironda swings are a great alternative).
-Javelin Press (the winner for lateral heads in my opinion, once you've gotten strong enough using the fixed BBs, move onto the Olympic bar, as keeping the longer bar stable is a great workout for the wrists/forearms as well).
-Cable lateral raises.
-Rear delt bent over rope pulls.
-Face pulls.
-Seated row with straight bar to clavicle.
-Cable Y raises.
-BB Shrugs and DB lean away shrugs.
-Haney Shrugs.
I was always paranoid about my fairly shitty clavicular width and so have always given shoulders a bit more emphasis - they're not too shabby now even if I do say so myself :)
BB OH presses have always irritated my left shoulder when done with too much volume. I still do them but generally stay below 3 reps (any more than this gets uncomfortable).
My two replacements for this movement have been;
1) log presses (before I moved gyms)
2) shoulder presses using the standing calf machine (brilliant! I think I stole this idea from CC)
I have also started upright rows over the last month or so and have found that this is perfectly comfortable for my shoulders. I stayed away from it before because it's supposedly the #1 movement to avoid if you have any shoulders issues. Time will tell I guess!
Other than that I use cables mainly to do side and rear delt movements.
MODOK wrote:
I don't do a whole lot for delts, aside from military pressing till my guts pop out of my belly button a couple times a weeks. I do have a love affair with muscle rounds side cable raises for a finisher though. 6x6 , alternating arms. Great stuff.
Here's a good question; Is there an workout/exercise combo for delts which makes doing all the prehab external rotation exercises obsolete? I've always suspected as much.
Oh man, I almost forgot that I love to do lateral raises with cables. Seems to hit the medial head a hell of a lot better than dumbbells.
Dave_ wrote:
I was always paranoid about my fairly shitty clavicular width and so have always given shoulders a bit more emphasis - they're not too shabby now even if I do say so myself :)
BB OH presses have always irritated my left shoulder when done with too much volume. I still do them but generally stay below 3 reps (any more than this gets uncomfortable).
My two replacements for this movement have been;
1) log presses (before I moved gyms)
2) shoulder presses using the standing calf machine (brilliant! I think I stole this idea from CC)
Well, to give credit where it's due: I got the idea from BN over at the official DC forum. He's moving 900 (+?) for reps on the power squat machine there.
It's always nice when you get to load the machine up with more than people would be able to quarter squat on it, and then proceed to do push presses with that weight :)
I have also started upright rows over the last month or so and have found that this is perfectly comfortable for my shoulders. I stayed away from it before because it's supposedly the #1 movement to avoid if you have any shoulders issues. Time will tell I guess!
Other than that I use cables mainly to do side and rear delt movements.
Do you know what exactly is wrong with your left shoulder? Do you get the discomfort at lockout?
Join date: Sep 2006
Location: Missouri, USA
Posts: 1443
I've been using this one here, demonstrated by Kai Greene at about :15 sec), for a while with pretty good success. I do this along with bent laterals for the rear delts.
Join date: Jun 2007
Location: Maine, USA
Posts: 11742
Cueball - I do those as well, but seated on a little step. I find that I'm able to stabilize a little easier because standing I tend to lean into it (ie cheat).
Do you know what exactly is wrong with your left shoulder? Do you get the discomfort at lockout?
I know what aggrevates it, but I don't know what the actual problem is.
My discomfort is at the very bottom of the movement (OHP) once I'm about midway up I get no problems. Front raises, lateral raises, upright rows all = fine.
Also, it's all about high reps. I can push out heavy singles for a whole session if I like and not get any pain.
Join date: Dec 2008
Location: Missouri, USA
Posts: 780
I've evolved in my thinking over the years. I now believe lower weight and higher volume is a better approach for delts. I still go heavy occasionally, just for shock value, but my delts at least respond better to volume and good form.
Join date: Aug 2009
Location: California, USA
Posts: 5062
davidcox1 wrote:
I've evolved in my thinking over the years. I now believe lower weight and higher volume is a better approach for delts. I still go heavy occasionally, just for shock value, but my delts at least respond better to volume and good form.
I've begun to realize the same thing. The main trainer that I use for reference at my gym stated that he has seen better results in shoulders using rep ranges from 15-20, rather than the classic 6-8. After testing it out, I think it is somewhat true.
I now use lighter weights for raises, that allow me to hit higher rep ranges with better form. Then I load up the pounds when I'm doing presses.
1.Side Raise (DBs or cable) pre-exhaustish
2. Overhead Press (Smith/DB) (Heavy 6-10 reps)
3. Lots of Machine Side Raise (As heavy as can for 15-20 rep sets)
3. Some kind of Face Pull
4. Maybe Cable Lateral Raises as finisher
I hate my shoulders. Too long of not enough direct work. Want to make them a strong point.
One thing I noticed: Routines which focus on maximum weight/mass gain in the shortest amount of time (BBB, DC 2-way variant, many TBT and 2-way splits and even 3-ways) seem to cause size gains more in the thighs, torso and front delts than the side and rear delts and upper chest.
BBB in particular is also great for the arms... But with all those routines /in all those cases (I'm talking drug free, average genetics guys not doing site injections or having great delt genetics), width isn't emphasized... It's basically just "gain as much mass as possible in the time-frame, no matter where, maximum lbm gain, numbers wise".
I personally think the best thing you can do for your shoulders as a bodybuilder and to get that "looking huge and wide even in loose clothes"-look (other than finding a good lateral raise machine) is to specialize in them for 1-2 years or longer (I don't really like those 3/week short-term spec routines for shoulders). That and focusing on upper chest and traps and tris as well for some time.
My fav exercises:
Presses (i.e. almost all front delts, even when pressing with flared elbows side delt size gains are imo negligible if we're talking "stand-out shoulder width", and there's practically no real rear delt in here at all):
-SHIPs
-various HS shoulder presses
-Power Squat machine Push Press
-Seated DB High Incline (i.e. most would call this seated DB military... Seat a notch or two below vertical)
-Seated BB HI Presses
Side and rear delts:
-some lateral machines (side), absolute king for side delts... You get plenty of crappy machines though unfortunately.
-Face Pulls in lat-pulldown leaning back, Mike Wolfe style with wide neutral grip (rear and side, I find that almost every rear delt exercise with elbows flared = significant side delt/hind-portion of side delt involvement). These can be done very explosively and even for moderate or lower reps if necessary.
-Face Pulls with Long Rope attachment (some "long" rope attachments are really too short for this), most comfortable for me when gripping the ropes so that the knobs are on the thumb side of the hands... This is not a regular face pull, but involves an external rotation.
-Reverse Pec Deck (rear and some side)
-Bent-Over laterals... I used to hate these because I did them with a conventional deadlift stance and I simply can't keep my back straight then (the upper portion of my quads gets in the way or maybe my hip joints don't have that much frontal ROM or something...)... Now I do them with a medium sumo stance or even a wide sumo. One can rest the 'bells on the ground for dead stop reps, may need an aerobic step or something like that though for short-armed/long-legged guys.
I don't necessarily do them dead stop like that, but it does seem to work pretty well. Can go real heavy on those (just make sure you actually manage to bring your shoulder blades together/shoulders back at the top, there's no point in just doing these with constantly rounded shoulders due to the weight being too heavy).
100's for reps is entirely doable here even if you don't weigh 280.
-I don't care much for regular laterals. Whether done with almost straight arms and no body English or not, they don't really give me the results a good lateral machine provides.
If I do them, then mostly to lower chest height or so and with a nice bend in the elbows at the top... Sort of a "power lateral" motion, i.e. mix of lateral and DB upright row if that makes sense.
I don't see regular laterals being great at all for long-armed people...
Rows etc gave me some rear delt size, but never that "bodybuilder rear delt" look... And I use them as backthickness exercises anyway.
Another thing... I'm going to try out doing more than just one rear delt exercise in my routines now.
Most people do either none or just one per shoulder session... I wonder how doing more will affect the way my shoulders look... Going to stick with bent-over laterals (dead stop perhaps, or dead stop every other session) and Wolfe Face Pulls as well as Rope face pulls with ext. rotation... And maybe high pulley standing rear "laterals"(?) as an iso exercise...
Plan is to do side and rear on chest day, and then on actual delt day. Previously I would do 2 full shoulder days (a press in both), but I no longer think that a press is necessary both times unless strength is lacking...
So this would look something like:
Chest (+side/rear delts)
-Low Incline exercise (DB? If BB, then heavy low-rep)
-HS Incline machine
-Pec Deck I guess...
-Wolfe Face Pulls
-Rope Face Pulls w. Ext. Rotation? Or rev. Pec Deck...
sometime later that week:
Delts (I don't do any shrugs atm because I'm still pulling sumo twice a week on back and leg day with different intensities... Might cut back on the sumo pulling though)
-Some overhead press, no idea what yet. Might even do the higher incline HS machine here because I'm really looking for more clavicular-pec thickness and a thicker pec/delt tie-in... Plenty of front delt size and strength already.
-Bent-Over Laterals... Dead stop maybe, or not...
-Lateral Machine
-Wolfe Face Pulls or one-arm high pulley st. upright rear delt "laterals"
Something like that. 1-2 top sets per exercise, trying to get as strong as possible, explosive positives, blahblah, the usual crap.
#edited
So referring to BBB what would be your shoulder selection ?
I've pretty much stuck with Seated Military Press... standing was getting stuck and refused to move. 2nd exercise being Push Press which i would presume has amassive carry over to the Seated M. Press.
Instead of Shrugs i do Rack Pulls but hold at the top and shrug it then - more bang for buck than just doing Shrugs for me anyways.
If your doing the Lat Pulldown how far back is "back" practically falling off ? Might swap the PP for something else .... preferably not Lateral Raise lol
Not sure if that is so great for natties... You're not going to compete at 250+ as a drug free guy of average height, so if you get to the advanced stage and you're sort of lacking in the shoulder width, upper chest/delt tie in, arm and backwidth department... You're sort of lacking in the areas which are supposed to be stand-out parts of a bodybuilder, no?
And it's not like you're still going to gain another 15 lbs of contest weight anytime soon just centered on your arms, delts and lats...
I'll have to get to the other posts later but this is interesting, are you saying you feel there's more of a max lean weight the body will be able to reach rather than a max amount of muscle on certain parts of the body?
As in if you've gotten to a heavy weight and add 10lb. of mass to your legs that may take away from 10lb. that could have gone towards your upper body? Not including the difficulty of eating to support the mass here.
Not sure if that is so great for natties... You're not going to compete at 250+ as a drug free guy of average height, so if you get to the advanced stage and you're sort of lacking in the shoulder width, upper chest/delt tie in, arm and backwidth department... You're sort of lacking in the areas which are supposed to be stand-out parts of a bodybuilder, no? And it's not like you're still going to gain another 15 lbs of contest weight anytime soon just centered on your arms, delts and lats...
I'll have to get to the other posts later but this is interesting, are you saying you feel there's more of a max lean weight the body will be able to reach rather than a max amount of muscle on certain parts of the body? As in if you've gotten to a heavy weight and add 10lb. of mass to your legs that may take away from 10lb. that could have gone towards your upper body? Not including the difficulty of eating to support the mass here.
Hm. I posted about this stuff before, and let me clarify that most of this is simply a theory of mine, I can't cite studies or anything to support it... I've discussed it with a sports med doctor who was active in old eastern Germany and involved with the gov. athletics program but that's about it.
I think the maximum amount of muscle you can hold as a natty in contest shape is likely far lower than the maximum amount of lbm you can hold at, say, ~15 percent bodyfat.
In the off-season, and barring that you're not 30% bf or extremely lean (like so many want to be constantly) or something like that, your anabolic hormone levels should be at their highest... You train as heavy as you can (hopefully), you eat so much that your body has plenty of resources to spare, etc...
But getting into contest shape, especially if you compete in one of those natty contests that require extreme leanness and dryness almost comparable to many non-tested shows, will mean first dropping a good load of water and fat, but then, once you're some 8 percent or whatever, thanks to the more and more restrictive diet/cardio regimen coupled with your t-levels likely taking a big hit, you will no longer be able to hold on to as much muscle-mass as you could support in a non-restrictive off-season...
So in order to bridge that last gap to contest shape and then getting dehydrated etc, you're likely going to lose quite a bit of muscle-mass and strength.
Someone dieting down with chemical support (just enough to keep t-levels stable etc, he didn't use in the off-season or even to get to his all-time biggest, he's just trying to keep things from crashing during his diet into contest shape down from 15% bf or so at his largest) will likely come in with pretty much the amount (or close to it) of muscle he had in the off-season... He certainly will be holding more than if he'd done the diet drug-free.
Many natties compete at relatively low bodyweights (with exceptions, of course) and stay close to contest shape year-around... But this will mean always placing restrictions on your bodies' resources (esp. for guys without the genetics for this), lower max strength and size, no real off-season...
They won't lose as much muscle mass when dieting into contest shape by comparison to our much bigger and stronger 15% guy, mostly because even with mediocre test levels, maintaining 170 lbs of lbm (and whatever amount of muscle comes with that) at average height is much easier/easily doable for the body than maintaining the other guy's 230 once test levels drop by 25-50% (or whatever the drop will be, depends on many factors and the individual) in his case between off-season and late-stage contest diet. Plus they start closer to contest shape and probably won't have to diet for as long/as drastically...
So there, I think you can get pretty damn big and strong as a natty as long as you don't artificially restrict your bodies' resources, but at some point, there'll be a disconnect between off-season gains and contest shape gains... The extra mass you gain really won't translate much into contest shape because in the off-season your anabolic hormone levels are probably quite a bit better (=higher strength and size "limit" /ability to gain and maintain) than in contest shape/close to contest shape (and due to that infernal diet, esp. the last half of it)...
As an assisted guy, if I'm 250 in contest shape and down to gaining peanuts per year, but my shoulder width and thickness, traps and upper chest plus arms are lagging behind my tree-trunk thighs and torso... I can just add a bit of "assistance" to get myself gaining a bit faster again (already increased food intake but the strength and size gains still didn't come and I gained mostly fat out of it), raise the ceiling a little perhaps... And really throw myself into delt, trap, backwidth, arm spec... Whatever I need first and train the rest at maintenance levels to hopefully balance out my proportions some.
A natty who stays lean all the time will likely have a lot of trouble bringing up bodyparts/proportions after a certain point... A non-restrictive natty like our 15% dude from way above will have it easier to change his proportions even during the advanced stage, because he can hold more additional muscle-mass and gains strength easier...
But even so, if you focus mostly on thighs and torso like quite a few people do and you get close to your limit in size compared to your hormone levels (or maybe you have tom platz' thigh genetics...), diet, training style and whatnot, then how are you going to balance that out?
If it's *just* the side delts, then you may still manage, but chances are there's more than just that area.
And worse, if your legs just totally and utterly overpower your upper body by bbing standards once you reach the upper echelons of the advanced stage, then you're in some real trouble... (not that I'm saying everybody should train their legs less, mind you. Could be your upper body too, after all, that's overpowering the legs, though I find that less likely in advanced trainees.
All it takes is no finding the right exercises for *each* major muscle-group/aspect of the physique, and years of specialization if you want/need to change your proportions to a degree... And plenty of food + strength gains ALL OVER THE BODY).
Uh, that was long.
I probably made the same point at least 4 times in there, but yeah, sorry.
I do shoulders as part of a push day, the other days being legs and pull. I keep it simple
......
Start of with a press
End with an isolation with an emphasis on lateral delts - normally laterial raises or upright rows
Implement this by busting your balls
......
If given the opportunity I normally do push presses of some kind, behind the neck I particularly like but they are high risk. I like push presses because I can overload the shoulders much easier than any other pressing movement. Alternatively if I'm not feeling strong enough for push presses I normally do some kind of seated press, again I prefer behind the neck because the seems to hit the side deltoids most.
Sides delts are a priority because my front and rear deltoids each get hit directly from the twice a week back and chest sessions. I don't currently do any direct isolation work for my front and rear deltoids, I don't seem to need it.
