Get Them Boulder Shoulders

Get Them Boulder Shoulders

            Shoulders help you in life with so many things, like lifting, pulling, raising, and lowering.  They make your shirt tighter and make your shoulders wider so you don’t look like a lanky wuss.  They create the whole form of your arm so you look more evened out in your arms, instead of being all biceps.  There are tons of exercises for shoulders and certain chest exercises also help with shoulders…  I’m getting so tired of saying shoulders, doesn’t even feel like a word if you keep saying it, I’ll just call them by their technical name, deltoids (delts).  You deltoids are the outside part of your shoulder, the one connecting to your bicep and tricep, but the other muscle that connects from your deltoid to your neck is your trapezius, but we’ll but we’ll just call it your traps. 

Shoulders

·         High Pulls – High pulls are an exercise that will help work the outside of your deltoids.  You use a barbell and start with the bar hanging out in front of you then in a quick athletic style you pull in up till it’s to the height of your upper chest them bring it down quickly.

·         Shoulder Press – The shoulder press is the most common exercise for delts and for good reason.  You start with your barbell up at shoulder level with your hands on it at shoulder width.  Then you push it up till it’s up above your head and your elbows lock or almost lock. Then bring it back down and repeat.

·         Lateral Dumbbell Pulls – Lateral dumbbell pulls are simple and burn like crazy.  Use one dumbbell in your hand hanging at your side, then while keeping your arm straight, lift it to your side until it reaches shoulder height.

·         Linear Dumbbell Pulls – Linear dumbbell pulls are a lot like lateral dumbbell pulls but instead of pulling the dumbbell off to your side you pull it straight in front of you.  This works a whole new muscle in your deltoid.

·         Arnold Presses – Yes, this is named after Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Start with two dumbbells curled all the way up to your shoulders, then push them up to till your shoulders almost lock.  Although when you do this you rotate your arms from a reverse grip on the dumbbells to a regular grip at the top.

·         Behind The Head Shoulder Presses – It’s the same as you might think.  Do a regular shoulder press but keep the bar behind your head to target a different muscle in your shoulder.

·         Bent Over Laterals – Use two dumbbells as you lean over a little bit and starting with the dumbbells hanging down in front of you.  Then you pull the dumbbells up to your sides while keeping your elbows locked in a slightly bent form.  This helps burn your back and also your shoulders at the same time.

Traps

·         Shrugs – About the only exercise to help you build your traps are shrugs.  Leave dumbbells hangs in each hand at your sides, and them just simply shrug up and down.  The slower you do your shrug the more burn you will get out of the exercise.  Your traps aren’t a very easy muscle to build and this is about the only way to do it without a big expensive machine.  To help build all angles of your traps, you can do this exercise but roll your shoulders in circles instead of just up and down.  Rotating both ways will affect all sides of your traps.

If you can think of a different way to work your traps or you want to share an experience you’ve had with shoulder exercise, or you can think of an exercise I missed, COMMENT!  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.

Why Your Workout Partner Shouldn't Be a Random Bum on the Street

Why Your Workout Partner Shouldn’t be a Random Bum on the Street

            I always encourage people in the gym to have a partner that they exercise with in the gym.  It can be to the advantage of both of you and sometimes it’s always really fun to be with your friends while looking buff.  But if your workout partner is some random bum on the street, you won’t get the same benefits.

            Having a good friend as a partner in the gym can be the best thing in the world if you stay focused.  It can help you stay encouraged and you can both have at the same time a little competition to see who can do the most weight, within reason, on the lifts you do.  Also, one of the best things about having a weightlifting partner is that once you finish your set, then he starts his set, and by the time he finishes his set you would have gotten about the ideal resting time to get ready to go into your next set.  Also it’s always a good idea to have someone there to watch you in case you need a spotter for something or if he knows what he’s doing he can tell you if you’re doing a certain lift wrong or if you could do it better.  And all of this work in the same advantage towards him.  Also, you can both push each other towards, finishing a hard last set, trying a heavier weight, doing another set, or pushing yourself to your best potential.

            It’s always fun to use this system because over time you should see results in yourself and in your partner and it help draw your friendship closer together, some of my best friends are people I have been weightlifting partners with.  If you’ve ever had a cool experience with a  weightlifting partner or seen the awesome power of having someone there to push to the limit, leave a comment.  Remember we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.

Getting Gains by Doing BODYWEIGHT WORKOUTS!!! Really Intense Bodywieght Exercise That Works Great!

Getting Gains by Doing BODYWEIGHT WORKOUTS!!! Really Intense Bodyweight Exercise That Works Great!

            Yes it’s true I’ve heard of a great workout that will help you get gains on your arms chest and shoulders.  Doesn’t that sound awesome!  It’s a big for anybody of any workout experience type, and it burns like crazy at the end (that’s a good thing).  I will tell you all I know about this cool new workout and see if you can take the challenge of doing this workout three times a day seven days a week for at least three weeks.  It’s hard but the strong willed can do it.

            First all you need is yourself and enough space to do a push up (if you can’t do a regular push up, put your knees on the floor and do it from their).  Then you are going to start by doing just one push up.  Then, you are going to get on your knees sitting straight up and do one weightless shoulder press.  (If you don’t know what a shoulder press is it’s when you hold weight at about shoulder height with your elbows out at your sides, and then you push upward above your head and return the weight back to shoulder height.)  For this exercise you will not need any weight. 

            After doing one pushup and one shoulder press, you will then without resting do two pushups and two shoulder presses.  Then again without resting you will do three pushups and three shoulder presses (starting to see the pattern).  If you for some reason can’t predict what the next step is in this workout you are either a little child in preschool or you are just too stupid to be working out and should stop reading this post now because I’m not even to the confusing part yet. 

            You continue to follow this pattern all the way to ten pushups and ten shoulder presses, then starting at nine, go all the way back down to one. 

            To do the challenge correctly you will need to do this three times a day, preferably morning, noon, and night, and each time you do it, do it with different variations of pushups.  You can do this in any order you would like, but let’s say you get up in the morning and do this exercise in a regular pushup position, then at noon you do the exercise in a narrow grip position with your finger almost touching while doing the pushup, then at night you do the exercise in a wide grip position with your hands about a half a foot wider than your shoulders.  Doing the different variations of pushups in this exercise will work different parts of your chest and shoulders.

            I challenge you to do this exercise three times a day, seven days a week, for at least three weeks and I promise you will see results in your chest shoulders and arms.  Also not a lot of you have been commenting on my posts, I’m going to change that, if you have tried this workout, comment on your thoughts or if you think I should change something or add something, comment that as well, if you even want to say I suck and threaten to throw your dog’s feces in my yard, comment on that also.  Remember, we’re all in this together, keep your stick on the ice.