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The ONLY 2 Exercises That Built My WIDE Shoulders

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Rating: 4.0; Vote: 1

How to get wider shoulders With so many shoulder exercises out there, it’s hard to know which ones actually work. But the truth is, you’re probably doing too many and focusing on the wrong areas. In fact, after cutting out all the fluff from my shoulder workout and focusing on just 2 science-backed exercises that target my side delts, my shoulders grew bigger and wider than they’ve ever been. And with the right form, you too will achieve the broad shoulders of your dreams. Click below for a step by step fitness plan to transform your body: Click below to subscribe for more videos: What makes shoulders look wide and gives you that classic V-comes down to just one main region. The side delts. But most people do way too much pressing exercises. Do this for long enough, and your shoulders will become overdeveloped in the front, lacking the width that truly makes them stand out. Fixing this imbalance is simple. It just requires a shift in focus. As for what exercises to focus on, the best option is lateral raises. But not all lateral raises are created equal. Take dumbbell lateral raises, for example. They challenge your delts most at the top. Ironically, this is where your delts are weakest. As a result, you’re forced to use lighter weights than they can really handle. But that’s not the only downside: there’s growing evidence that exercises providing a greater stretch, and challenging your muscles in that stretched position, may lead to better growth. Dumbbell lateral raises don’t do either of those. So, how do we fix this Well, this brings us to exercise 1 of our shoulder exercises. First, lock your elbow into your side and rotate your arm outward. Where your arm naturally stops is the optimal arm path for lateral raises. This means the best lateral raise is one where your arm can move behind your body to maximize the stretch. Cables are the perfect tool for this. By setting the cable at a slightly raised position rather than at the very bottom, you can immediately shift the challenge to the beginning of the movement where your side delts are the most stretched. You can do this single-arm or double-arm, depending on your preference. That said, if you’re a beginner, this exercise might feel a bit tricky to master in your shoulder workout, especially the double-arm version. Don’t worry. You have other options. One option is to first do a normal set of dumbbell lateral raises. Then, immediately after you can’t do anymore full reps, grab a pair of 5lb heavier dumbbells and perform partial reps just in the bottom range. Another option is to try the lean-in dumbbell lateral raise. While the first exercise focused on the main part of your side delt, there’s more to your shoulders than meets the eye. Muscle activation research suggests that your shoulders might have up to 7 different heads, all of which can be independently activated by your nervous system. This means that small adjustments to your lateral raise technique can work areas of your side delts that you’ve probably never hit before. One area, in particular, that often gets neglected is the rear portion of the side delt. So how do you target it So, first, for cables, start by setting the cable at wrist height. Grab the cable in front of your arm. Next, take a few steps to the side and rotate your body about 45 degrees toward the cable. From here, raise your arm in a straight line away from the cable. As for the dumbbell version, first set up a bench just one notch down from vertical. Support your chest against the bench, let your arms hang straight down in front of you, and then raise them out to your sides. But before you jump into these 2 exercises in your haste to build broad shoulders, there’s one key principle you need to apply. A small increase, like 5 lbs on dumbbells or moving a pin down on cables, can be the equivalent of adding 40 lbs to your bench press. So when you think you’re ready to increase the weights, as soon as you do, your form breaks down. Leaving you stuck doing the same weights forever. But here’s the good news: research shows you can build muscle either by adding more weight or by doing more reps. This opens up a smarter way to progress. Here’s what I do. I stick to a broad rep range of 10-20 reps. Once I can perform at least 15 controlled reps across all my sets, I’ll bump up the weight. But when I’m using cables, where even one pin heavier can be too much, I’ll use a simple hackgrabbing a 5 lb or even a 2. 5 lb plate and sticking the pin through it to make much smaller jumps. Lastly, the final piece of learning how to get wider shoulders is understanding the best way to program these 2 exercises into your workout routine. I’d suggest doing 4-5 sets of each but splitting them up across different days to give your delts enough recovery time before hitting them again.
Date: 2024-12-09

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Comments and reviews: 20

victorvictor9662
Side delt doesn't benefit from stretched bias lateral raises for 2 main reasons:
- The supraspinatus initiate shoulder abduction because it's fibers are perpendicular to the humerus while the side delts fibers are parrallel to the upper arm. It means that the side delt only has leverage to raise the arm once the humerus is already somewhat abducted.
- The side delt is multipennate instead of fusiform like the rear and front delts, multipennate means that there is a mix of many tiny fibers. In practice, multipennate muscles are made by nature to compensate a tiny ROM of contraction with more strenght in that ROM, so the statement at 1: 43 is wrong
In fact Jeremy has a really good physique except for his lagging side deltoid (very obvious at 4: 52) wich indicates that his exercice selection could be wrong
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liftingforfun2347
i think people should be concerned with details like these only if they have average/below average genetics. My shoulders are my second best group after back and all i do is 3 sets of heavy raises ( max I go is 20kg each side ) with 6 clean reps then cheat with momentum and try to slow on the negative for another 2-4 reps max then two sets of strict seated raises with 15kg for 8-10 slow reps with 1 rir excepting last set. So 5 sets for shoulder day and thats it, worked wonders and way better than doing 10 sets of high rep range sets paired ith overhead pressing like i did in the past with no results. Never had to do any pressing ever but I do go for smith press here and there just for fun if i feel like it with fairly low weight 2-3 set max with 80-90kg slow ass reps for 6-8 reps max.
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clamum9648
Gigaethier
I wish I could do behind-the-back lateral raises. I can't even do the front ones with my hands down all the way. My shoulders are jacked up so I need to start them at like a 30 degree angle, otherwise they hurt like the day after (NOT just soreness. The same is true for bench press; found if I don't go down to my chest all the way I can do them without shoulders hurting. It's a bummer, with all the talk about the stretch position. Oh well, it's not like my lateral raises/benching isn't doing anything, it's just a little less effective/slower to build muscle.
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Elmy_Kiu
It is a misconception that the shoulder press doesn't hit the medial deltoid: we know from EMGs and it's anatomical function that they're involved to respective degree- So why would you discard an exercise that is easy to progressively overload Anecdotally, I listened to advice like this and never did shoulder presses in my first 1. 5 years of lifting, which I strongly regret.
A tip for the cable lateral raise is to substitute the d handle with a cuff and place it above your elbow. This shortens the moment arm of the movement, making it easer to advance in weight.
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victorsvensson7914
The animations of the muscles are totally wrong. There are several muscle groups on the shoulders missing. Talking about shoulder muscles as only three, front, middle, and back is a simplification. There are 7 muscle groups. That is why your shoulders looks wide from the front, but as soon as you are turning around 90 degrees or 180 degrees, they dont look big anymore. Okay I see now that you told about the 7 heads later in the video. Thank you. It is the same with many muscle groups, the bicep and tricep for example.
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bisaular5333
The two best exercises for side delt (for me at least, where i can feel them the most and see massive gain are behind the neck press (sometimes i do them rocky press) and incline lateral raises (lying sideways) with dumbbell, going all the way until the arm are perpendicular to the floor. It hits the side delt like crazy, and if you want to hit the rear delt, just lower the dumbbell to your front a bit. Behind the neck press is bad yeah whatever. Been years, nothing bad happen to my shoulder. Dont ego lift, period.
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BulletBill-yb3ti
Cables allow for wider motion range and more time under tension.
However, if you don't have cables and are tired of DB lateral raises, there is a barbell variation of. Hold the bar wide grip with no plates as far out as you can, even to where the plates normally go. Put your thumbs on top so the other 4 are holding it. Raise the bar slightly over your head and hold for a second, then back down to your waist Yeah it is only a 45 lb barbell but it works great.
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real77630
Interesting, you really don't need to think about working seven different heads of the muscle delts That means you would need 7 inserts and 7 origins to really hit every single muscle. Since there's only one origin, it's not really worth it. Trying to hit each part of the muscle actually a waste of time. I would just lay on my side and different angles on an inclined bench to work different strength curves for my side delts.
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hughesyboy
Question - what if instead of lateral raises with only dumbbells or cables, you superset starting with partial DB lateral raises doing the top 75% only (to keep the tension high, and then go straight into partials on the cable (using the same behind the back technique in the video) and concentrating on the lower portion only (again keeping tension high. is that an effective way to get the best of both worlds
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Cityzen567
Guys, don’t do this exercise if you have shoulder problems. Having your arm behind your back and raising it to the side is not optimal for shoulder health and can cause impingement/ rotator cuff injuries. Instead, have the cable in front of you and raise your arm just slightly in front of you (approx 60 degrees to your torso. This position works the lateral head just as well and is in the scapular plane.
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whiskeY_11
A killer exercise for side delts is light dumbbell lateral raise supersetted with seated dumbbell OHP. This way, you dont even need to use heavy weight on OHP because your side delts are pre-fatiqued from lateral raise. Been doing these for 1 year 2x a week and my side delts went from non-existent to semi-canoon balls lol. Definetly trying Jeremy's variation for behind the back cable lateral raise tho.
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Mornepin
4: 24 I don't believe in light weight exercises, it never worked for me. I made significant deltoid gains with that exact type of machine, instead of light cables and light dumbells.
It's a pretty rare machine, but since I ended up repping the full stack, now I need to find the same machine with EXTENDED arms. That way the weight will feel harder. But this machine is on another level of scarcity.
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doggo64
In your next study please take full hypertrophy measurements of the lateral delts unlike milos study as recent studies (maeo preacher vs incline curl study taking measurements 10-90% of bb) have been far better at detecting overall hypertrophy due to regional differences in hypertrophy eg ( zabaleta korta et al preacher vs incline curl study taking measurements only at distal regions
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Shreadington
Great tips! My favorite lateral has been one arm DB leaning on the preacher bench. Big stretch at the bottom and intense in the low range. 3 sets each side, 20-25 reps 2-3 second negatives. It's excruciating but I'm making progress. Started out using the 10lb DB now at 12. 5lbs. Training them 3x a week with 48hrs rest in between. Lower volume with more frequency is best for me.
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bcbc1037
Wide grip BB upright rows for side and rear delts. Wide grip BB overhead press superset with behind neck press for front and side delt. Wide grip BB bent over rows for rear delts. Lying dumbell lateral raise partial reps emphasizing stretch at bottom for side and rear delts. These movevents have added more size than any other ive tried over last 20yrs by far.
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Wormsie
Cable lateral raises are not compatible with my shoulder injury. Had a really bad flareup when I tried them and had to scale back my training for 6 months. I've switched back to dumbbell lateral raises with a slight incline. It worked for me 20 years ago and works today. Just a warning to anyone else with shoulder problems you might want to avoid this trend.
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pbkimblee1858
Doing cable lateral raises using a V-bar does the trick for me. It allows me to lift significantly more weight while maintaining a strict form. Grab the handle through the other handle in a way that the other handle rest on your forearm (i don't know how to word it properly) which will allow you to push the weight from forearm.
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ZugZug99
Holy shit. I just realized how many subs Jeremy has and how consistently he's getting a crazy amount a views. A natty finally getting what they deserve. Dude's been in the YT fitness game for a while putting in work consistently, nothing but respect. I started watching this guy back around 2017 when I was first getting into fitness
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mahadevovnl
One-arm kettlebell swings behind the back (right arm: start behind your back, swing, raise, slow the drop, repeat) is by far the best. You're constantly engaging your muscles and you're stretching them. Form is important: stand up straight, face forward, and you can definitely swing slightly with your body left and right.
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bennelson4159
Honestly bro much improved, your width has improved for sure over the years, I find personally hitting rear delts a lot make them pop as well, it seems like shoulders can take a lot of punishment, ive found high and low rep ranges combined on lateral rises help mine a lot. Always like your content!
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