Having big shoulders gives you an aesthetic physique.
They make you look wide, thick, and strong.
Wide shoulders make your waist look smaller and give you a better “V shape” that we all want. Those huge front delts are what are called boulder shoulders and today I’ll show you how you can grow them to look massive.
If your shoulders are under developed your entire physique gets thrown off. The problem is that most guys suffer from horribly underdeveloped shoulders and never properly hit them.
My promise to you: When you follow the advice in this article your shoulders will blow up. Working shoulders might even become one of your favorite days. When you follow the routine at the end, your shoulders will have a pump unlike anything you’ve ever felt before.
The 3 Secrets To Building Big Shoulders…
1) Work All 3 Heads Of Your Shoulder
Most shoulder workouts consist of doing some for of presses, move into some lackluster dumbbell raises, and usually end there. There’s no real understanding of how or what creates a true “boulder shoulder“. Let me explain…
There are 3 “heads” to your shoulder…
You’ve got the anterior (front) delt, the posterior (rear) delt, and the medial (middle) delt.
In our typical workout, the presses work great – but we are usually severely lacking on the isolation of each head.
If you’re not specifically isolating each head and crushing them individually, how will it grow?
The ultimate shoulder workout (which is at the end of this article) utilizes every head of the shoulder and isolates them to make sure your shoulders grow like weeds.
Do I Need To Lift Heavy Weight Or Go High Volume On Shoulders?
Like always, there is no “right answer” but what seems to work best for most guys is a combination of both.
Heavy weight is good. So is high volume work. Most guys shoulders respond insanely well to high volume, and I’m sure yours will too.
Lift with some heavy ass presses, and follow up with some very concentrated isolation work of each head.
Those are so important that they are the next keys to building big shoulders…
2) Do Some Heavy Ass Presses (WITH PROPER FORM!)
When you start your workout (after warming your shoulders up), smash them with some heavy weight. Either use dumbbells or the overhead press and lift heavy.
This is going to set you up for success when we move into the next steps.
The two exercises that completely engage your shoulders are the Dumbbell Press, or the Overhead Press.
Now don’t let your ego get in the way. Use your shoulders to lift the weight. Lots of guys engage their backs, triceps, spotters, and pretty much anything BUT their shoulders. Don’t be that guy.
Lift heavy, be focused. Feel your muscle working.
Once your shoulders are dead from the heavy weight, we will finish them off with high rep isolation exercises…
3) Finish Them With Higher Rep, Lighter Weight Isolation Work…
A lot of guys will argue with this point. In fact, I hear the haters already…
“Doing raises with 15lb dumbbells won’t do shit! You need to lift HEAVY ALL THE TIME!! 2 scoops of PREWORKOUT #gymlife #selfie #gains”
My answer?
Arnold Schwarzenegger Doing Shoulder Raises With Embarrassingly Light Weight
Look at those weights. Those are not “heavy ass weights”. So many guys who have built amazing physiques have utilized light weight, high rep shoulder work.
Do you think Arnold did a quick and easy few reps with that? Hell no.
We both know he pumped until it hurt like hell and kept on going…
Light weight doesn’t have to be “easy” if you utilize your muscle properly.
I guarantee you mixing in this high volume work will have a phenomenal result on your shoulders.
The Perfect Shoulder Workout Routine…
I’m going to give you the shoulder workout that I personally use and blew my shoulders up with. Try this and I guarantee you’ll love it. You will never go back to your old shoulder routine.
WARM UP: Grab some bands and warm up your shoulders. Do some stretches and get them moving. If you’re doing overhead presses, use the bar for a set or a light set with dumbbells.
REST TIMES: For the presses, rest 1-2 minutes per set. For the rest of the workout try to keep your rest times between 30 seconds to a minute. Don’t be lazy. Work them like hell and feel the pump.
Shoulder Press (Bar Or Dumbbell ) – 4 Sets of 8 Reps
Barbell Upright Rows(Traps/Front/Middle Delt) – 4 sets of 10-12 reps
Follow that workout to a tee next time you work shoulders and feel what I’m talking about.
Don’t just believe me because I say it’s true.
Go try it and see what I mean. You will feel your shoulders unlike anything else you’ve ever done.
Keep following this routine and you willliterally see the proof. Your shoulders will start growing, you’ll get that “boulder shoulder” look, and you’ll probably end up loving shoulders as much as you love Chest and Bi’s. For some killer rear delt exercises, check out my other article on the Best Rear Delt Exercises.
In this article, I’m going to explain to you why your chest isn’t growing, and how to make it grow like a weed…
The Problem With Chest Development…
Let’s talk about the big problem first.
Think of the bench press….
Ever noticed that some super skinny kids at the gym can throw around decent weight… yet remain flat chested?
How many skinny dudes do you see in the gym smashing out benches of 225lbs+ no problem?
How many skinny dudes with no chests do you see picking up 100lb dumbbells and chest pressing them?
There are a lot of strong guys who stay small and do not grow muscle.
The problem here lies in the correlation between strength and size.
There is a relation between the two, that’s very obvious.
Where most bodybuilders get caught up is thinking that more is better when it comes to increasing their strength and adding more weight to the bench press.
If you want to be a powerlifter – great!
If you want a big strong chest that drops jaws – listen up and pay attention!
When your only focus is adding more and more weight, you will likely reach a point where your chest itself (more on that later) can no longer take the majority of the load, and your other muscles will kick in to help.
When the weight gets too heavy, your shoulders, triceps, and chest all kick in to help press the weight.
This takes necessary strain and focus off of your chest, thus hindering your growth.
I know, I know, it’s fun to smash around heavy weight. It feels good. It strokes your ego.
There is a time and place for heavy lifting, but if you want to grow your chest you need to put your ego aside and make some changes.
How To Properly Work Your Chest
People always talk about how wicked their pumps are at the gym.
Do you notice that they are almost always exclusively referring to their biceps?
Why don’t more guys brag about the insane chest pump they got from their workout?
You guessed right – they are hardly working their pectoral muscles properly!
When I switched up my routine, dropped the weight significantly, and started performing the exercises I’ll share below, my chest started to finally grow.
Get A Proper Squeeze in Your Chest…
You’ve probably heard dudes around the gym talk about “making sure you squeeze”.
This is making sure that you are properly utilizing the muscle that you are trying to hit.
The problem with chest (benching and dumbbells in particular) is that most dudes have no idea how to properly fire their chest muscles and drive through their chest.
Frank Zane, one of the many pro bodybuilders who were big on the mind muscle connection.
Next time you bench, before you add any weight try this…
With only the bar, perform your bench press and focus all of your energy on only using your chest muscles as best as possible.
Feel your chest doing the work and when you reach the top of the rep, fire your chest muscles and give them a good squeeze. Thats the process behind Feeder Workouts.
It should only take a handful of reps before you can get a really good burn going in the chest.
Now you’re using your muscles properly!
Most guys realize instantly and have a huge “a-ha! moment” that they have been benching wrong.
You can even try this right now by putting your arms out in front of you, hands together, and squeezing and flexing your chest as hard as you can. Feel the burn? That’s what you want when exercising your chest.
This is commonly referred to as a “mind-muscle” connection and a lot of seriously accomplished bodybuilders place great importance on the connection. One of these being Frank Zane – one of the most aesthetic humans to have ever walked this earth.
Make sure you get a proper squeeze and are properly firing and activating your pecs while training chest.
For benching as a mental cue, you can think of “breaking the bar apart” on the way down and “putting the bar together” on the way up. There’s many mental cues that allow you to use your chest the best way possible.
I would also recommend warming up your triceps prior to any chest exercise. This can help drive the mind-muscle connection even further. Check out the guide to tricep stretches here.
Getting that squeeze is crucial to growing lean muscle tissue, and it’s the basis around my upper chest training. If you want to grow your upper chest or it’s really lagging behind, read my article on The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Upper Chest. There’s no bullshit, check out the progress pics at the end of that article.
Hit It With More Volume & Rest Less…
Another tip that exploded my chest was to hit it with more volume.
Most dudes are lifting way too heavy, resting way too long, and not properly activating the muscle.
This is a trifecta of bullshit if you’re trying to grow a big chest.
Drop the weights, perform more reps, more sets, and keep your rest times no longer than a minute or a minute and a half.
If you’re worried about lower weight not being able to grow muscle, go read the last half of my Rich Piana Feeder Workout article for an explanation.
I guarantee your growth will be massive and your pumps will be unlike anything you’ve ever felt before.
Perform Exercises That Better Isolate The Chest…
When you think of chest exercises, what comes to mind are the typical ones.
Bench press, incline bench press, decline bench press, dumbbells for all the same variations, and maybe the odd isolation exercise such as flyes, cable crossovers, etc.
I’ve found that these majority of exercises people perform for chest are incredibly easy to mess up by using too much tricep and shoulder.
Add these exercises into your next chest workout to properly isolate the chest and make it grow. You can click each exercise for an explanation video. You will see how these are very hard to use any muscle except your chest when using proper form.
Flat Dumbbell Flyes
Incline Dumbbell Flyes
Chest Pullovers
Cable Crossovers
Wide Grip Bench Press (Moderate Weight)
Wide Grip Incline Bench Press (Moderate Weight)
Take my advice from this article, put your ego aside, learn to properly fire and activate your chest, and I guarantee it will grow like crazy. Remember, your chest is just one part of your body to build a full featured, strong physique. If you want to look big from any angle, check out my other article on Growing Your Traps. Until next time!
You might be travelling and stuck in a pinch (use a heavy backpack for this routine).
Whatever your case, this workout routine can be used to build muscle and lose body fat without ever having to even step inside of a gym.
Ideally you’ll want to get a gym membership to build your body, but almost everyone has access to dumbbells, milk jugs, or a backpack you can load up so it’s worth knowing!
About This Workout Routine…
When I was living on a tiny island in Thailand without access to a gym, I used a combination of this workout and feeder workouts in order to build and maintain my physique.
Seeing as most dumbbells kicking around the house are usually 15-30lbs we will be doing a higher rep workout with minimal rest. This will raise your heart rate and burn fat while you build muscle.
If on a particular exercise your dumbbell is too heavy (concentration curls for example), you can spot yourself with your other hand, or take a slightly longer rest if you need to.
This is a 3-day split meaning you will perform each workout once per week, totaling 3 workouts per week. The days of the week aren’t particularly important but should look something like this:
You will perform each exercise for the allotted amount of reps and sets.
You will rest only 1 minute in between each set. This is going to make it an intense fat burning workout.
Combined with the high reps you will get unreal pumps and your physique will love you.
If you are confused about any of the exercises, just click the exercise name and an instructional video will open in Youtube.
1) Arms
We are going to be working out arms on the same day. This will be the biceps and the triceps together for workout number one. We will focus on good squeezes, really utilizing the muscle and obtaining a full pump. Make sure to isolate the muscle and exercise strict form. It will hurt. That’s the goal!
Supersetting: We will be supersetting our bicep and tricep exercises. This means you will perform one and immediately move into the next exercise. Once you have finished the supersetted exercise, you will begin your rest.
We are going to be hitting chest and back in the same day. Your goal is to get a good squeeze. FEEL your muscles contracting under the weight. This is especially important with your chest. Make sure you are actually lifting the weight with your chest.
Back is by far the most challenging (and least utilized) muscle group when it comes to dumbbell workouts. Following this routine you should be able to get a good pump and work your lats hard.
With your rows, make sure to let your lats fully stretch out for a full range of motion.
NOTE: If you have access to a chinup bar I highly recommend throwing in a few sets of pullups until failure. If not, you will still be able to hit your back but chinups do wonders for lats.
Bent Over Row – 6 sets of 12 reps Shrugs – 5 sets of 14-16 reps One Arm Row – 6 sets of 12 reps Pullups (optional) – 4 sets until failure
Shoulders/Legs
Our last workout is shoulders and legs. With legs, you will not have heavy enough weight to hit them hard but you can still rep out like always and get a good pump. Make them burn, stick to the rep ranges and lower rest times and you’ll still be able to effectively hit them.
Our goal with shoulders is to isolate each head of the shoulder with higher rep work and really get a good pump. Exercise strict form on each lift and make sure you rep them out. Your dumbbells should be light enough to reach these rep ranges with no problems.
There you have it! You can now work your entire body with just a pair of dumbbells.
This isn’t some slacker workout either. Give it a shot and you’ll see – the pumps are unreal, you will be sweating like crazy, and more importantly building muscle and burning fat.
I have had to rely on this in times of need and have gotten amazing results and I’m sure you will too.
If you’ve heard of them and found this by searching about Rich Piana’s feeder workout, you can skip ahead and read my opinion and the truth about them.
If you haven’t heard of them it’s an interesting concept that gets asked about ALL THE TIME on Youtube and Instagram and other social media.
When I was on an extended trip to Thailand and found myself without a gym, I filled up my backpack with my MacBook, shoes, and a few water bottles and did daily feeder workouts.
Even though the weight was stupidly light my arms absolutely grew bigger and got more defined.
What Are Feeder Workouts?
The idea behind a feeder workout is that you are going to pump your muscle like crazy with high repetitions.
This will then force blood, oxygen, and other nutrients into the muscle thus ‘feeding’ the muscle.
When performing a feeder workout you use very light weight, very minimal rest, and focus entirely on the pump.
What’s the point of a feeder workout?
Good question! The point is to grow your muscle.
“BUT DON’T I NEED SUPER HIGH WEIGHT TO GROW MY MUSCLES?”
Not entirely true! Like always there are many different philosophies and we’ll dive into the reasoning behind this and why it actually works.
At first, it sounds like a complete load of BS, but stick with me because there is an interesting side to it.
If you want a complete breakdown watch the video below of Rich Piana explaining his feeder workout arm routine.
Warning: if you’re a delicate daisy proceed with caution! Rich drops like 300 F bombs in the following video.
Why Feeder Workouts Make Sense
I know, I know, it all sounds like a BS workout routine you’d learn in a muscle magazine.
I will say – like EVERYTHING ELSE in bodybuilding this may not work for you. The only way you will ever be able to find out is to do your own study and measure your results.
I can tell you that this worked extremely well for me, countless others on social media, and obviously Rich Piana who has ridiculously giant guns.
In order to break down why these work so well, let’s take a look at Rich’s proposed arm workout.
Rich’s Piana’s Feeder Workout For Big Arms:
Using 15lb dumbbells with no rest 3 times in a row followed by posing in the mirror.
Skull crushers – 100 reps
Hammer curls – 60 reps
Let me ask you… when was the last time you did 100 reps of an exercise?
Seriously…
Nowadays most dudes throw down an easy 8-10 reps, rest way too long, perform just a few sets, and that’s it.
The pump you will get after performing 100 reps is unbelievable.
You can literally feel your muscle swelling and grow when you do these high rep workouts.
When I was completely stuck on ego-lifting and smashing as much weight as I could, I hardly felt my muscles being used. Want to try a chest feeder workout? Read The Best Damn Feeder Workouts For Chest. Your chest will explode.
I distinctly remember throwing up the 100lb dumbbells on shoulder press, killing myself and probably using every muscle in my body except my shoulders to lift the damn things.
Compared to nowadays training with a moderate weight and aiming for a very good mind-muscle connection, squeeze, and ultimate a pump.
Training For The Pump…
If you have ever listened to any interviews with bodybuilders and fitness models, a lot of them don’t follow any set in stone program.
They train intuitively by listening to their bodies and getting a great pump.
The focus of the feeder workout is to give you a pump like you’ve never had before. We’re talking practically bursting due to the amount of blood you’ve forced into them.
Ever tried an arm blaster? It’s like that, but all the time.
When you do this, your muscles are being fed essential nutrients required to grow – which in the end is our goal, right?
Can You Even Build Muscle Using High Reps?
The problem with bodybuilding is that every one of us is different.
What works for Arnold might not work for you. What works for your gym partner might not work for you.
When BS studies and “facts” get spread around, people forget that they might be different.
For example, you must be familiar with the “fact” that in order to build muscle you have to stick within the rep range of 8-10 reps. Maybe do about 3 sets per exercise.
The reality is many phenomenal bodies were built using a COMPLETE opposite method.
The Legendary Serge Nubret, Famed For His High Rep Routines
Just take one look at Serge Nubret, pictured to the left.
Serge’s workout routines were absolutely insane with rep ranges and set ranges generally around 6-8 sets of 12 reps per exercise.
These workouts were performed with a moderate (not egotistically heavy) weight and focused on good squeezes getting an insane pump.
By all of our magical (bullshit) science we have nowadays, you would be determined that Serge’s workout routine cannot possibly work and would be a complete waste of time.
Pretty much exactly what most people think of when they hear of Rich Piana’s feeder workouts.
The two workouts are based on the same philosophy.
You can grow your muscles without ridiculous heavy weights, simply by making sure they are getting used properly and you are obtaining proper pumps.
Smaller muscles groups can be hit with LOTS of volume, that’s one of the training principles behind shoulder exercises for example. If you want to Grow Your Rear Delts, you need to hit them over and over again.
But Easton – I Need To Lift Heavy Weight To Get Big! The Internet Said So!
There is a correlation between strength and size. The problem is, it doesn’t work exactly how you think it does.
Here’s a fun experiment…
Look around your gym and find the biggest, jacked aesthetic guys there. They can most definitely lift heavy weight. Some might be, others might be doing a more pump-focused routine. It depends.
Now look around for average size guys (probably benching!). Some kids can bench stupid amounts of weight, but for some weird reason are NOT gaining the size they want.
Me personally, I used to do my dumbbell presses with the 110lb dumbbells. My chest practically didn’t exist. (That and when I didn’t eat enough protein…)
Ever since switching to a high rep workout my chest has completely changed. I actually feel my chest working during a workout, whereas ego bench pressing did absolutely nothing for it. Check out the Best Damn Chest Feeder workouts.
In a comment on Bodybuilding.com Serge Nubret himself made a great analogy.
Look at dudes who work manual labour things such as construction jobs. Their shoulders are usually massive and defined from all of the use. Hell, have you seen their forearms? For dudes that work with their body and hands all day, their forearms take a lot of abuse. Are YOU one of the dudes that have the problem of growing your forearms? Read my other article, Guide to Getting Big Forearms (trust me, it works!).
Look at dudes who lift massive heavy weight – AKA powerlifters. They are complete tanks and I respect that, but in the real world aesthetically speaking they look like awful.
At the end of the day, it comes down to your body but feeder workouts and high rep work might be just what you need to reach your next level and grow your muscle.
Give it a shot and let me know how it goes. Worst case scenario you get to walk around with insanely pumped arms for a few hours a day 😉
