7 Best Shoulder Exercises You Should Do to Work Your Shoulders

To have well-rounded shoulders, it’s important to be aware of the best shoulder exercises that will help you work on all three parts of the shoulders - anterior deltoids, lateral deltoids, and posterior/rear deltoids.

It’s crucial to work on all three shoulder heads to give the shoulders a proper, well-defined shape. Additionally, working on all heads will help in increasing shoulder strength, which in-turn will help with several compound movements such as barbell rows, bench press, overhead press, and others.

Here are the best shoulder exercises that you must incorporate in your shoulder routine to give it a proper shape while adding muscle mass.

#1 Barbell press

The barbell press is a compound movement which is usually a part of almost all shoulder routines. If you have not already done this exercise, you should add it in your workouts. It’s considered a foundational movement for the shoulders.

This exercise works on medial and anterior deltoids and is an extremely effective exercise to add muscle mass. Additionally, it works on the triceps since it’s a compound movement.

#2 Arnold press

This exercise is named after bodybuilder and Hollywood superstar Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s done using dumbbells and works on your delts and traps.

The Arnold press facilitates upper body movements by increasing strength and working on all the muscles of the shoulder. But be extremely careful when doing the exercise since it does put the shoulders at risk. Ideally, you should start with light weights, get the hang of the exercise, and move to heavier weights as your strength increases.

#3 Lateral raise

The lateral raise is one of the best shoulder exercises for anterior and lateral deltoids. Usually, you should do this exercise after doing compound movements, but this could be a good a great warm-up too.

It’s advised that you begin with lighter weights and move on to heavier ones as your strength increases.

#4 Front raise

The front raise can be coupled with the lateral deltoid raise as a superset or can be done separately. This exercise targets the lateral deltoids and is one of the exercises which can be done with cables, dumbbells, or even barbells.

#5 Upright row

If you’ve never done upright rows before, it’s imperative you add them to your shoulder routine. This exercise is one of the best shoulder exercises to target the traps. It’ll help you grow the trap muscles and add a mass that makes your shoulders look broader.

You can do this with a barbell or with cables, depending on which one seems to work better for you. However, be careful not to let go of the weight too fast as it can pull on your muscles and injure them.

#6 Face pull

Face pulls are usually exercises for the rear delts and are done at the end of the workout. But since it works on the upper back as well, rear delt exercises can be used as supersets with other exercises as well.

You can also add rear delt exercises on the days that you train your back.

#7 Pike push-ups

This is a bodyweight exercise and a variation of the push-up which targets the shoulders. In this exercise, your legs will be on an elevated platform while your palms are on the floor. As a result, you’ll need to be careful since the pressure on your shoulders is immense.

What you should do is start with doing pike push-ups on the floor where your palms and feet are closer and you’re in an inverted ‘V’ position.

As your strength and form improves, you can move your feet to elevated levels.

Bottom line

The above are some of the best shoulder exercises that you can incorporate in your workout routine which will work on the muscles from all angles. There are advanced variations of the same, but you need to master the basic form before you can move to the advanced variations!