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Quick Wits: Best Exercises for the Shoulders (Lifting for Muscle Series) · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: Shoulders, a small but critical part of your upper body anatomy.
• 0:05
  Philip Pape: In today's episode, I'm diving into my top four exercises for building strong, sculpted shoulders.
• 0:11
  Philip Pape: It's all about the delts and those muscles supporting the rotator cuff, and this is part of the Lifting for Muscle series on QuickWits.
• 0:18
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 0:23
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, phillip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:34
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best.
• 0:44
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:46
  Philip Pape: Welcome to another QuickWits, where we break down fitness into digestible, actionable advice.
• 0:53
  Philip Pape: Today's focus is on the shoulders, a crucial area for both strength and aesthetics, and I'm going to share with you four exercises that I swear by for building robust and well-defined shoulders.
• 1:06
  Philip Pape: And I would know I had left rotator cuff surgery not too long ago in 2023, and I'm building those shoulders back stronger and more sculpted than ever.
• 1:16
  Philip Pape: First on the list is, of course, the barbell overhead press.
• 1:19
  Philip Pape: You get a sense of my theme here right.
• 1:22
  Philip Pape: Every single one of these is probably going to start with a barbell movement.
• 1:25
  Philip Pape: They're super effective.
• 1:26
  Philip Pape: You can load them up, you can use most muscle mass and a natural movement, full range of motion, all of the things.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: It's a great tool.
• 1:33
  Philip Pape: So the overhead press this is a compound movement.
• 1:36
  Philip Pape: It's a powerhouse for shoulder development.
• 1:38
  Philip Pape: It primarily targets the anterior deltoids, but it really doesn't stop there, because it also engages your triceps, your upper chest.
• 1:45
  Philip Pape: You feel it throughout your core.
• 1:47
  Philip Pape: You feel it even in your quads as you tighten those quads to push the load up straight through.
• 1:52
  Philip Pape: The key with the overhead press is get your head out of the way so the bar path remains straight and isn't too far away from your body, and push, drive through to the top and then shrug at the top to get the full range of motion.
• 2:05
  Philip Pape: So that's number one, the overhead press.
• 2:08
  Philip Pape: Number two we have dumbbell and machine presses.
• 2:11
  Philip Pape: I'm lumping these all together, depending on what you have access to.
• 2:14
  Philip Pape: These are awesome for isolating the shoulder muscles and again giving you a greater range of motion than you can.
• 2:20
  Philip Pape: With the barbell press you can come right down kind of to your cheek level with those dumbbells and then press them up and because they're bilateral, each arm gets its own work going for it, its own stabilization and strength development independent of each other.
• 2:37
  Philip Pape: And then, of course, a machine if you have access to in the gym, a press machine which I wish I had access to one can be a really good way to target through that range of motion.
• 2:46
  Philip Pape: But not but let you really hit a higher load without having to stabilize as much.
• 2:52
  Philip Pape: So it's a really good targeted, dealt, focused movement.
• 2:55
  Philip Pape: All right, so that's dumbbell and machine presses.
• 2:58
  Philip Pape: Number three is going to be lateral raises.
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: I think these are one of these underrated.
• 3:02
  Philip Pape: You know.
• 3:03
  Philip Pape: They're these small isolation, direct work type exercises that might seem like kind of a throwaway until you realize how much they they annihilate the middle deltoids effectively.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: It's kind of a hard spot to hit with almost anything else, and this is really good for the width of your shoulders.
• 3:22
  Philip Pape: When you're thinking of aesthetics, the big thing here is to keep those movements very controlled and to rotate up with the shoulders, and the dumbbells should come up pretty high.
• 3:31
  Philip Pape: The idea here isn't to to swing them out and to use all this momentum and to be bending forward and back.
• 3:38
  Philip Pape: You have to be very controlled.
• 3:39
  Philip Pape: So you might have to go to much lighter weight than you think, much higher reps 10, 15, 20 rep range, but you're going to feel them.
• 3:47
  Philip Pape: These actually could be a great warmup, depending on your focus before overhead press, as long as you don't burn your shoulders out completely.
• 3:55
  Philip Pape: Number that's number three right.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: So number four, the last one, is anything for the rear delts.
• 4:00
  Philip Pape: You don't want to neglect the posterior deltoids because then you know things aren't as balanced.
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: You could have potential injury if you're kind of neglecting that spot.
• 4:09
  Philip Pape: And it's a beautiful part of the back.
• 4:10
  Philip Pape: When you look at the back and the entire anatomy of it as it all connects together, you get that definition and that shadow in the rear delts.
• 4:17
  Philip Pape: Like I know what I'm talking about.
• 4:19
  Philip Pape: That's just the way I picture it.
• 4:21
  Philip Pape: So exercises like reverse flies, which can be done bent over on a bench, seated down, you could do them with a cable.
• 4:28
  Philip Pape: You could do face pulls way up high, almost above your head, and hold yourself in a split stand so that you don't get pulled forward.
• 4:39
  Philip Pape: But that's how I like to do rope face pulls Bent over lateral raises I mentioned.
• 4:44
  Philip Pape: And then I love the pec deck machine in reverse If you have one that allows you to do reverse flies that way.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: All of these are excellent for rounding off your shoulder development and giving you that comprehensive strength and stability that we're going for.
• 4:57
  Philip Pape: All right, so those are the four exercises Barbell, overhead press, dumbbell or machine presses, lateral raises and rear delt movements.
• 5:05
  Philip Pape: Oh, one more rear delt movement is a seated cable.
• 5:08
  Philip Pape: Pull wide grip high.
• 5:10
  Philip Pape: That's another way to get it.
• 5:11
  Philip Pape: Anyway, that's it.
• 5:13
  Philip Pape: Those are the four.
• 5:14
  Philip Pape: If you want strong, resilient shoulders, remember again, a balanced approach to shoulder training not only enhances the strength and appearance, but it's really good for your overall shoulder health.
• 5:24
  Philip Pape: So you don't get those rotator cuff tears.
• 5:25
  Philip Pape: You need to stay strong and keep, keep pushing those limits and do it intelligently.
• 5:30
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of wits and weights.
• 5:35
  Philip Pape: If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode.
• 5:49
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.