5 Shoulder Exercises You Can Do Without Upright Rows

Shoulder exercises have an important role in your workout routine. While your biceps and triceps often get worked during compound movements, you should work on your shoulders separately as well. Moreover, it is also imperative that you do separate exercises for biceps and triceps.

The wider your shoulders are, the more tapered your physique will be. This means that it will be easier for you to achieve the V-shaped look. Of course, to properly achieve that shape, you must have wider lats as well. This is where the importance of shoulder exercises comes in. Before you begin, you should know that there are three parts to shoulders - lateral, anterior, and rear. To develop boulder-shoulders, you should work on all three parts.

Returning to the focus of this article, remember that upright rows, while quite popular, work on your shoulders (lateral delts and upper back), and are an advanced type of exercise. If done incorrectly, you can injure yourself gravely. Therefore, it’s better to focus on other shoulder exercises for similar benefits.

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5 Shoulder Exercises to do Without Upright Rows

The following are some of the shoulder exercises that you can add to your workout routine to build proper shoulders:

1) Shoulder Press

One of the top picks for shoulders is the shoulder press. It primarily works on your lateral and anterior deltoids and is a compound movement.

Since it’s a compound movement, you must maintain a strong muscle-mind connection to ensure you’re doing the exercise with your shoulders and not with your triceps. Nevertheless, your triceps will get worked on to some degree during the entire exercise. You can also do the exercise using dumbbells or barbells, depending on whichever suits you better.

You can find the guide for shoulder press here.

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2) Cable Lateral Raise

You’ll need access to a cable pulley machine to do cable lateral raises. You can choose to exercise by pulling the cable across yourself from the front or the back. Alternatively, you can shift between the two ways of exercising as you deem fit.

When you’re doing cable lateral raise, you have to keep in mind that it’s better to lessen the load and focus on your form. Too much load will not enable you to use the full range of motion, and the exercise will not serve you with all the benefits.

Additionally, cable lateral raises allow you to increase the range of motion if you lean slightly towards the side getting worked on!

You can find the guide for lateral raises here.

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3) Barbell Front Raise

Front raise specifically targets the anterior deltoids, but your lateral delts get enough stress too. However, this is an exercise where intensity matters instead of loading all the weight plates to the barbell.

To ensure you’re activating all your muscles properly, it’s ideal to control the entire exercise. The more control you have over the motion, the better it’ll be for your muscles.

Of course, you can do this shoulder exercise using dumbbells as well.

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4) Face Pulls

Face pulls are among the shoulder exercises that are great for your rear delts. It’s an excellent way to activate the smaller muscles around the region while ensuring the bigger muscles get worked on as well.

You’ll need access to a cable pulley machine for this exercise. While doing this exercise, engage the muscles and squeeze the shoulder blades together at the top of the motion. The more you engage your muscles, the better it is for development.

You can find the guide for face pulls here.

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5) Reverse Flyes

Reverse flyes are another exercise for your rear delts. More often than not, rear delts are missed during shoulder exercises, although that must not be the case.

The only way to properly develop your shoulders is by developing all three parts. Your rear delts are just as important as any other part of your shoulders.

An alternative to reverse flyes while using dumbbells is to use the pec dec machine for reverse flyes. Either way, it works on the same muscle group using the same motion.

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Bottom Line

Shoulder exercises do not need to be overly complicated. Shoulders are an important part of your body and need to be treated with care. This is why, instead of lifting too many weights, it’s ideal to lower the weight and focus on proper form and add volume.

Nevertheless, if you want to lift heavy but you can keep your form, you must give it a shot!