My Shoulders Suck - Help

[ZenMachine]

For some reason I can't seem to get my shoulder to grow at all. I have tried a variety of routines. Any new suggestions.

Most recently.

Military Dumbbell Press
Arnie Press
Side Raises / Front Raises
Upright Rows.

I can only press the 50's when I do the dumbbell press. Geez, I do alternate dumbbell curls with 45's. It is kind of embarrassing.

On a somewhat related note. When ever I go heavy on the dumbbell presses I get really lighted headed while getting them into place and pushing up the first one. Almost to the point of blacking out. Any ideas?

Thanks
Zen

 

[needsize]

I'm assuming that by shoulders you mean increasing the width of your delts.
Here's the routine that really helped with my width, the total # of sets depends on the level of your physique and the amount of volume that it can handle.
Military or Dumbell Press 3 sets 5 reps, then 1 set on lower weight of 8-10 reps
Dumbell Side laterals - 3-5 sets, 8-12 reps, on my last set I'll do a triple drop set to really fry my delts, ie, 10 reps with the 45's, then grab the 35's and rep out, then grab the 25's and rep out.

I do prefer military press over dumbell as I can handle much more weight safely, anything over the 100lb'ers starts to feel kind of scary. If your doing military, do them to the front and ensure you're using the full range of motion.

Hope that helps

 

[Lord_Suston]

Upright row are also good to blast your shoulders and the wieght used is easy to balance. I always do military dumbell, they are a staple of my workout. Once oin a while I'll do some force reps to get a nice negative movemnt. basically it standing barbell presses and at the end of the set use your leg to help lift the weight up and count to 5 while slowly lowering the weight.

 

[tzan]

What does your splits look like?? Are you working your shoulders by themselves, or with another muscle group?? My shoulders really responded well when I split them up. For instance, I worked just my front delts with my chest and on another day I worked my back with side and rear delts. This works well for me, but I usually go back to just a shoulder day after about 4 weeks.
When I split my shoulders up this is what I do:

Chest/Front Delts
3 sets Barbell Bench
3 sets Incline DB Press
3 sets Incline Db Fly
3 sets Flat Db Fly
2 sets Milliatry Press
3 sets Front DB Raises

After doing all the heavy pressing sets for my chest my front delts are usually burning up. The same sort of thing for my rear and side delts on back day.

 

[needsize]

Just be careful with upright rows, it is a good exercise but also puts your rotator cuffs in an injury prone position, so make sure you warm up a lot and don't worry about going heavy. I haven't been able to do them for years as they make my shoulders hurt like hell.

 

[Lord_Suston]

Needsized I was just thinking the same thing I usually don't go over a hundred lbs and they are one of my last excercise to burnout the whole shoulder complex. Zenmachine,Make sure when you do you raises sit down this takes away a lot of momentum.

 

[b fold the truth]

I didn't see overhead barbell presses in there anywhere? I suggest doing clean and presses (standing).

I also used to grab a hold of a machine with my left hand and lean sideways (25-30 degree angle) and do side laterals with my right arm. Then switch. For some reason...the leaning over body position just felt better.

B True