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Your shoulders are the core of a v-taper. That means that if you look at your body from waist to shoulders then you should see a V with your waist being the bottom and your body widening out as much as possible as you get to the shoulders. Because of this anyone that wants to look more athletic and stronger will want to work all three heads of the deltoid, or shoulder muscles.
Here are my three favorite shoulder exercises
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Side laterals – This exercise is done by standing with a fairly light dumbbell in each arm. Lean forward just a little bit and then lift the weights out to your sides with your arms almost straight and near the top pull your shoulders back a little to make sure that you can really feel the contraction in your shoulders. A set or two of these and your shoulders will be burning.
Pull-ups – These are a compound exercise meaning that you are not just working the shoulders but also the biceps. To do pull-ups just hold a barbell with your hands about 6-10 inches apart and then pull the bar up to your chin. While you are doing this exercise I like to lean back a bit. It is important to make sure that you do not use too much weight for this as cheating by using too much weight will cause you to not work the muscle and also possibly lead to muscle pulls or strains.
Military Press – This is the most popular of all shoulder exercises and again is a compound exercise. Military presses work both the shoulder and the triceps. To do a military press you sit and lift a barbell over head from shoulders up to fully extended. This is I think a tough exercise as it not only works the muscles but also relies on balance a lot.
Although these exercises are my favorites for working shoulders it is important to know that you have three heads to your deltoids they are the front, worked military presses and pullups. There is a middle deltoid head worked with the side laterals. And the rear head of your deltoid which is worked best with lat pull downs for your lats or bent over laterals.
To work your shoulders you can do these exercise, a max of three anyway I think and just two sets of 10-12 reps for each exercise. I find a lot of people really like working shoulders and always seem to overtrain them.
