Build Huge Shoulders WITHOUT Weights! (Front, Middle, Rear) – ATHLEAN-X™

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If you want to build huge shoulders then you need to know how to hit every head of your delts. In this video, I’m going to show you how to build bigger front delts, middle delts and rear deltoids without using any weight at all. Too often, we find ourselves thinking that weights are the only way to build big shoulders. That isn’t the case. If you have the bodyweight exercises for delts in your arsenal you will be able to get the job done even when you’re not training in a gym.

To start, you have to understand the concept of relative motion. It isn’t always necessary to focus on the moving limb during an exercise to see what part of the shoulder it is working. For instance, when you perform a side lateral raise you are moving your arm away from your body while holding onto a dumbbell. What is really going on is abduction at the shoulder joint.

If you apply this same move to an immovable floor however, you can get the same thing to happen at the joint. You can get resisted abduction to occur by rotating your body away from the arm that is fixed on the floor. Look closely and you will see that the same amount of abduction is occuring in the shoulder and that the muscles of the middle delt are working to accomplish this just as they would be in standing.

Just because the arm isn’t actively moving away from the body doesn’t mean that you cannot get the same effect. Simply move your body away from your arm and your middle delts will be on fire and you will have a new way to build huge shoulders without always needing to rely on dumbbells or heavy weights.

Next, you can apply the same concept to your front delts. Now the front deltoids are commonly worked in many popular shoulder exercises and even non-shoulder exercises. The important thing is to look at the motion of the arm is it is raised out in front of the body and overhead. This same movement pattern can be replicated into a bodyweight equivalent with the exercise I show you here called the pushaway press.

Here, you are using the fixed floor once again to serve as the resistance for your shoulders to push and contract against to propel your body backwards in the opposite direction. Again, the same pattern is happening in the front delts and the motion at the shoulder joint is the same. The resistance is determined by how low you position your body to the floor. Either way, you will quickly see that you do not need weights to build big shoulders if you start using this shoulder exercise.

Finally, you can apply the same concept to building your rear delts as well. Normally, the reverse dumbbell fly is the standard exercise of choice when building up the back of your shoulder. Again, this exercise depends on using weights. What if you don’t have access to them however and still want to get huge shoulders? Enter the reverse iron cross.

Lay down on your back on the floor with your arms outstretched and your fists pushing into the ground. Lift your back up off the floor just far enough to clear your upper traps and elbows. Hold for a brief count of 2 to 3 seconds to really intensify the contraction of the delts. You will quickly see that this again becomes a great alternative for building big shoulders when you don’t have access to any equipment at all.

If you are looking for a complete bodyweight only workout program to build bigger, wider shoulders, head to and get the ATHLEAN XERO program. See how fast you can build your body without any equipment at all and start training like an athlete today.

For more exercises for shoulders and shoulder workouts to build massive delts, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at

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