Your shoulders are some of the most complex areas of your body from a mechanical standpoint. No other joint is under so much pressure and has such a wide range of motion; it’s no wonder shoulders are so prone to injury. By following the following shoulder training tips, you can avoid missing workouts due to shoulder discomfort.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not how hard you train in the gym that matters most for building muscle or losing weight, but how well you can optimize recovery. Shuffle your cards right and you’ll be able to exercise more often and more efficiently, making it easier to achieve your fitness goals.
Whatever your exercise goal, you’ll likely need to use your shoulder joints and tendons to achieve it. The shoulders are heavily involved in many different exercises, such as the bench press, dead weight or even squats; you can’t help but not take care of them.
Popular internet fitness personality and CrossFit athlete Marcus Filly shared four training principles and 10 functional bodybuilding movements to help you keep those delts strong and healthy.
Marcus Filly’s 4 Shoulder Training Principles
Before going on to list the best shoulder exercises, Marcus shares four training principles that can help prevent injuries in the first place. These are:
- The first repetition is slow and controlled: This allows the muscles and tendons to become familiar with the movement.
- Use static/isometric contractions regularly: Isometric movements use the muscles without abusing the joints.
- Limit complex and fast movements: These are taxing on the joints and therefore you should include them in your routine in moderation, if possible.
- Pain scale 3 out of 10: “If it hurts more than 3 out of 10, I just don’t do it,” says Marcus
As Marcus explains in the video, the above principles helped him recover from shoulder injuries. However, his body is probably different from yours, so he adopts these principles to meet his training needs. Some of the advice, like using controlled reps first, can be taken as-is, but the pain scale is definitely something he’ll need to modify based on his requirements.
Marcus Filly’s 10 Shoulder Exercises to Avoid Injury and Aid Recovery
Marcus divided his list of 10 shoulder exercises into five movement sections: push, pull, isometric, rotation/fist rotation, and dynamic/carrying. This differentiation could help you seamlessly integrate these exercises into his training schedule, even if he’s a push-pull-legs routine or a full body workout.
The ten exercises are:
- Entrepreneur
- Landmine Press – It’s like a Smith machine for the shoulder press
- Eccentric Approach Pushup: Lower Body Slowly
- Traction
- Face Pull: Can be performed with a cable machine or resistance bands.
- Elbow Row: Similar to the one-arm row, but with more emphasis on shoulder movement.
- isometric
- Dip Stand: Hold the starting position of the bodyweight dip
- Side plank: an excellent basic exercise
- Rotation/swivel sleeves
- Dumbbell External Rotation – Works well as a warm-up move
- Band Split: An essential exercise before any upper back workout.
- dynamic/carts
- turkish costume – Full body workout in one movement
- Carrying and holding the kettlebell rack – simple but effective
There you go! Aside from the landmine press, most exercises can be performed with minimal home gym equipment – everyone should have at least a couple of dumbbells Y Russian weights after lockdown, right? You do not have any? All you need is the Boxbell 3 in 1 adjustable dumbbells/kettlebells and all your home workout needs will be met.
