Summer or winter, it’s always a good time for guys to flaunt their broad, menacing shoulders—it’s also the one thing the ladies will notice most (apart from your guns). But how do you get perfectly capped delts? Just give this workout a try, and you’ll be sporting some mighty deltoid muscles in no time.
Before listing the routine here is a description of each exercise and how to execute it:
Seated Side Lateral Dumbbell Raise
Targets: Middle deltoids
Sitting on the edge of a bench with your feet firmly on the floor, place the dumbbells in the space between your feet and the bench, this is your starting position.
Hold the dumbbells with your palms facing in and your arms straight down at your sides at arms’ length. This will be your starting position.
Without swinging, lift the dumbbells to your side with a slight bend on the elbow and the hands slightly tilted forward. Making sure your arms are parallel to the floor.
Lower the dumbbells back down slowly to the starting position as you inhale.
Seated Front Dumbbell Raise
Targets: Front deltoids
Sitting on the edge of a bench with your feet firmly on the floor, place the dumbbells in the space between your feet and the bench, this is your starting position.
Pick a couple of dumbbells and stand with a straight torso and the dumbbells on front of your thighs at arms length with the palms of the hand facing your thighs.
Without swinging, lift the dumbbells to the front with a slight bend on the elbow and the palms of the hands always facing down. Make sure your arms are slightly above parallel to the floor.
Seated Bent-Over Rear Delt Raise
Targets: Rear deltoids
Sitting on the end of the bench with your legs together and the dumbbells behind your calves.
Make sure you bend your waist while keeping the back straight in order to pick up the dumbbells.
The palms of your hands should be facing each other as you pick them, this will be your starting position.
Keeping your torso forward and stationary, and the arms slightly bent at the elbows, lift the dumbbells straight to the side until both arms are parallel to the floor. After a one second contraction at the top, slowly lower the dumbbells back to the starting position.
Heavy Seated Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Targets: Front and side delts
Grab your maximum lift for this exercise; you may need a spotter to ensure good form.
Bring the dumbbells up to shoulder height at each side and rotate the wrists so that the palms of your hands are facing forward.
Push the dumbbells up until your arms reach lockout .
Slowly come down back to the starting position as you inhale.
Light Arnold Shoulder Press
Targets: Front and side delts
Using dumbbells 60-75% lighter than the shoulder press.
Sit on an exercise bench with back support and hold two dumbbells in front of you at about upper chest level with your palms facing your body and your elbows bent, your arms should be next to your torso. The starting position should look like the contracted portion of a dumbbell curl.
Now to perform the movement, raise the dumbbells as you rotate the palms of your hands until they are facing forward.
Continue lifting the dumbbells until your arms are extended above you in straight arm position. Breathe out as you perform this portion of the movement.
Begin to lower the dumbbells to the original position by rotating the palms of your hands towards you.
The Killer Delt Routine
Triset: One set will consist of seated side lateral raise, seated front dumbbell raise and seated bent over deltoid raise, rest period should last no longer than 90 seconds.
You may not be able to use the same weight for each exercise so plan ahead and make sure you know what weights you will be using, to ensure good form you may need to start off light.
Seated side lateral dumbbell raise:
3 sets of 15-20
Seated front dumbbell raise:
3 sets of 12-15
Seated bent over deltoid raise:
3 sets of 12-15
If done correctly then the previous tri set should have pre exhausted your deltoids before you get to the dumbbell press, you may be wise to have a spotter on standby for the exercise below.
Superset: One set will consist of heavy seated dumbbell press followed by light Arnold shoulder press, rest period should last no longer than 90 seconds.
Heavy seated dumbbell shoulder press:
3 sets of 4-6
Light Arnold shoulder press:
3 sets of 12-15
The benefits of trisets and supersets is that it helps you avid plateaus and it is also beneficial in saving time, increasing intensity and in this particular instance overloading the muscles.
And because this workout consists of both compound and isolation movements, and if performed correctly then you should have a tingling sensation of DOMS in your shoulders the next day which means you are well on the road to having monster capped deltoids.
