Shoulder Exercises

"Bodybuilding is much like any other sport. To be successful, you must dedicate yourself 100%
to your training, diet and mental approach."- Arnold Schwarzenegger

Shoulder Exercises are not just important for looks, but because they help you support the arms. A weak shoulder will bring no result for the arms. The shoulder joint itself is one of the most complex joints in the body, because it is only protected by muscles.

A proper shoulder routine should never neglect exercises for the rotator cuff muscles as they stabilize the shoulder joint. I will discuss below the most important shoulder exercises.

Shoulder exercises:

Anterior Deltoid (front part of the shoulder muscle)

Shoulder Press: can be done in front or back of the neck (some people refer to it as military press). You can either do it with barbell, cable (not the behind the neck version), lever or dumbbell. With the dumbbell you can also do it single arm alternating.
Focus: straight posture

Focus on the core, especially when you use big weights.

Front Raise: can be done with barbell, cable or dumbbells. If you don't hold your core, you will hyperextend in your back and start jerking the weight up, rather than raising it. The upper arm shoulder never go higher than parallel to the floor.
Focus: core

Arnold Press: this shoulder exercise is a shoulder press with a twist of the arms on the upward and downward movement.

Lateral Deltoid (outside part of the shoulder muscle)

Lateral Raise: can be done with cable, dumbbells or lever. Can be done with straight arms or with bent arms (higher weight)
Focus: keep your shoulder straight, as you get tired you will try to rotate your shoulder to compensate with other muscles.

See the way Bertil Fox is doing the upright row.

Upright Row: can be done with barbell, cable or dumbbells. I would suggest not raising the bar higher than shoulder level (when the upper arms are parallel to the ground), because especially with big weights it can put a lot of pressure on the clavicle. I've heard cases of snapping clavicles with this exercise. But check out Bertil Fox's style in the video
Focus: if you do it with dumbbells or cable, keep your wrist straight

Raise: is basically like an upright row on the side. Due to the very short range of motion (especially with a muscular guy) I give it less importance in bodybuilding training.

Posterior Deltoid:

Rear Delt Row: Can be done with barbell, dumbbells, cable and lever. Main problem that I see occurring is too much pressure in the lower back for those who are not flexible enough and jerking motion that leads to excessive pressure in the lower back.

For those with a weak lower back should do this exercise on the bench, but at the same time work on their lower back with other exercise.
Focus: straight back, hold your abs, breathe properly

Rear Lateral Raise: again same problem as above, pressure on lower back, although a little bit less, because the pressure is more at an angle. You can do this exercise either standing bent over or seated.
Focus: Pull from the back of the shoulder, slow motion