I went into the gym on Monday to hit rear delts and traps. Last time I trained with Will he helped me to work those areas of the shoulder. Today I figured Will would help me with the front and side deltoid and I would get everything else out of the way first.
I ended up doing three different exercises for rear delts and two different exercises for traps. Nothing new or special, just made sure I got in there worked the muscles hard and got out to get some food into me.
The Workout:
Rear delts and Traps
Rear lateral raises on incline bench – 30 x 24, 35 x 20, 40 x 16, 45 x 12 Rear delt machine – 110 x 18, 120 x 12, 130 x 10, 140 x 8 Lying reverse cable crossovers – 20 x 16, 22.5 x 12, 25 x 10, 27.5 x 8 Standing dumb bell shrugs – 115 x 20, 115 x 20, 120 x 16, 120 x 16, 130 x 12 Standing machine shrugs – 180 x 24, 270 x 20, 270 x 20, 270 x 20
Abs and Lower Back
Leg raises – BW x 40, BW x 30, BW x 30 Hyperextensions – BW + 25 x 30
At 5pm I came back in to Gold’s to train delts with Will. I explained to Will that I had already worked my rear delts and traps earlier in the day and I wanted to focus on the front and side delts. Will had a look at my shoulders and said that we don’t even need to do anything for the front delts firstly because they are heavily developed already and secondly because they get some much stimulation when you train other muscle groups such as chest. Will also thought if I capped off my side delts a bit more it would give me a lot more width and V taper standing on stage.
Therefore Will tailored all the exercises to focus on my side delts. The first thing we started with was a machine raise. I sat forward on the machine with my chest on the pad and my hips towards the back of the seat. I then held the handles and lifted the machine arms as far up as possible consciously trying to contract my side delts. I then lowered about three quarters of the way down as instructed by Will and raises back up again. This was to keep tension on the side delts and make the exercise more difficult by not allowing them to rest. As always Will emphasized to keep breathing out on every rep. I could feel this exercise mainly in a band across the side delt and a little in the traps due to the high range of motion of the exercise. We completed five painful sets of thirty reps before we were done with this machine.
Machine side raises – 5 sets of 30 reps
I asked Will about presses for the shoulders. Will’s opinion was that you don’t need to shoulder press more than once a month. Will’s motto is “stimulate not annihilate” and this came across in his training. He says training lighter with very strict form and specific muscle contraction is how he has managed to stay injury free.
The next exercise we did was one arm side raises. Will had me sit sideways on an upright incline bench with my chest up and holding a dumb bell, lift my arm straight up to the side at around shoulder height keeping my elbow straight. My palm was facing my leg at the bottom and I would twist the dumb bell so my pinky was facing up at the top of the movement. I would then switch sides and do the same exercise. This one again specifically hit the side deltoid almost in isolation. I completed two sets of twenty reps with fifteen pounds and two sets of twelve reps with twenty pounds. I know that sounds light but when you are using absolutely strict form in the way Will had me do it that extra weight is not necessary or possible for that matter.
Seated one arm side raise – 4 sets of 12 – 20 reps
For the final exercise Will decided we would do upright rows with a cable attached to a rope. We had done this exercise last time when we did rear delts. It is true this exercise tends to hit both the side and rear heads in the way that Will does it. However I think because we were focusing on side delts the movement may have been modified slightly to accommodate for this. Holding the rope with both hands I bent forward slightly at the hips with my back arched and chest up. I pulled the rope up and backward slightly in an arc. To hit the side delts more Will had me pull my elbows up extra high and I squeezed my side delts as I did so. Again Will made sure that I only came down about three quarters through the range to keep the pressure on my delts so that they couldn’t rest even a second. After three sets of fifteen my shoulders were really starting to fatigue so Will called it quits there.
Upright cable rows with rope – 3 sets of 15 reps
Since Will is a master poser, he took a few moments to show me how to perform a few bodybuilding poses. I have to say anyone can copy poses from a book or pictures but Will really knows what he is doing there. He was able to bring out the best from my physique with little tips that would just not be possible for most people trying to copy a pose to pick up.
What I took away from this workout with Will other than the posing was a new approach to shoulder training that I will be able to use in my own routines. Will I completely change everything that I’m doing? Probably not, but since I think my side delts could really use some more width I will definitely be using some of Will’s exercises in my future shoulder workouts.
