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Hey there guys, Brian Kramer here for MuscleLibraryTV.com. Just got finished with an awesome, exhausting
shoulder workout in the gym and what we did and what we are going to show you are two
simple exercises for your shoulders that many, unfortunately, are missing the full benefits
from. So what we're going to do is take you back, show you how we tweak this movements
just a little bit to help increase their effectiveness. Now as you know there is a right way and a
wrong way to do things, but today, we're going to try to show you the better way of doing
things. Now the better way is going to help you isolate the side delts a little bit more
effectively on side raises and the front delts a little bit more on dumb bell front raises
to really help our shoulder growth explode. So let's take you back in, show you what we
did today to really help our shoulder growth progress.
All right there guys. We're going to be starting with dumb bell side raises. We're going to
start the movement in a seated position instead of standing to help us avoid swinging our
bodies back and forth in an effort to get the weight up. We want to really focus on
lifting the dumb bells with only our deltoids. So to start the movement, we're going to have
the dumb bells down at our sides and bend forward slightly. Raise the dumb bells at
the same rate straight out to your sides while maintaining a slight bend in your elbows.
Raise the dumb bells to a height that is equal to shoulder height, or slightly above. And
then lower them under complete control, feeling your side delts resisting the dumb bells all
the way down. Now to increase the effectiveness of this movement, you want to do two different
things. Now the first thing is, you want to think of leading the movement with your elbows.
And the second thing is, you want to turn your wrists slightly at the top of the movement,
as if you're trying to pour water out of a bottle.
Here you can see that at the top of the movement, the front of the dumb bell is lower than the
back, which signifies that we are executing the pouring water out of the bottle motion
correctly. These two little tweaks to the dumb bell side raise, will really help you
to get that last little squeeze of the contraction in the side delt area faster and more effectively.
You'll probably notice that you can't go as heavy on this movement either, because instead
of spreading the load between the front and side delts, it helps to isolate the load onto
the side delts and now you have one head of the shoulder dealing with the brunt of the
load instead of two.
So now we've just increased the quality of the side delt movement. We now are more effectively
targeting the side delts on these dumb bell side raises.
All right, but we're not going to stop there. We're going to take this movement to even
a higher level of isolation. We're going to perform this movement the Charles Glass way.
Now if you don't know, Charles Glass is considered the trainer of trainers and he trains many
of the IFBB's body building elite.
Instead of starting the movement with our palms facing our sides, we're going to start
with them facing the rear from the very beginning to the end. Now this is really going to spotlight
the side delts throughout the entire range of motion. Now just like before, we want to
lead the movement with our elbows instead of just raising our arms out to the sides.
Point those elbows toward the ceiling and imagine you have a rope connected to your
elbows, and that rope is pulling your elbows up towards the ceiling.
Now as you notice, this variation doesn't allow us to bring our arms quite as high as
before. It's hard to get them, even to shoulder height, which is fine. The reason being is,
that when we raise our arms above horizontal or shoulder height, it tends to engage the
upper part of the trapezia muscles. So to avoid trap involvement in this movement, we're
going to stay at a height that is equal to or slightly below horizontal or shoulder height.
Now doing side raises this way, will really attack the side delts like never before and
you'll probably find yourself reaching for a lighter size of dumb bells. But let's think
about it, what's more important, using more weight, or having bigger shoulders? I'd rather
have bigger shoulders from doing the movement in such a way that I have the maximum benefits
possible.
Now let's take a look at a great variation of the dumb bell front raises. We are again
going to start the movement seated, and with the dumb bells at our sides. We're going to
assume a neutral grip with our palms facing our body. Then in a controlled fashion, raise
the dumb bells out at the same rate, focusing on doing it with our front delts and were
going to raise them out to the front of our body. Now the tweak in this movement occurs
at the very top of the movement. At this point, we're going to bring the dumb bells together
out in front of the body and have the tail end of the dumb bells almost touching each
other and the tops flared out.
How I picture this is that the bottom of the dumb bells are magnets that are essentially
attracting each other and that the tops of the dumb bells are repelling each other. Now
by turning the top of the dumb bells out, it keeps the stress on the top of the front
delts and really helps to get that last little squeeze out of the delts and really make them
burn and beg for mercy.
So give these subtle adjustments a shot to really help cap off your shoulders and you
that broad shoulder width that we're all looking for.
So thanks for hanging out with us today. Feel free to drop by MuscleLibraryTV.com for more
information about living a Muscle Friendly Lifestyle.