If you want to build wider shoulders fast you need to narrow your shoulder exercise selection and broaden the weight selection you use when performing them. In this video, I show you how a simple side lateral shoulder raise can do everything you need it to do to create extra width in your delts. You just need to be willing to perform the shoulder exercise with both heavy and light weights.
First, let’s start with a little shoulder anatomy. The middle head of the delt is the one that is most visible when looked at from the front. It is the one that is going to create the most lateral width in the delts. That said, both the front delt and rear delt has overlap anatomically with the middle delt and doing exercises to improve them will only benefit the way your shoulders look from any angle.
That said, when it comes to building up the middle head of the delts your best exercise option is the side lateral raise with a dumbbell. First of all, it is a good idea to do these only one arm at a time instead of two arms at the same time. This will give you a better chance to concentrate on doing the exercise correctly and limiting the amount of muscle substitution that occurs when you do your lateral raises.
The second benefit here is that when you have to lift two dumbbells at once, you are asking that your core be able to stabilize the combined weight of the dumbbells. This is twice as hard than if you were to introduce just a single dumbbell at a time, thereby putting the focus more on the delts than on the core and helping you to get more from it.
When you are ready to perform the exercise you have two major options; both of which need to be performed if you want to maximally build up your shoulders. The first is to grab a light dumbbell and do the lateral raise with a focus more on muscle recruitment and metabolic overload. The light dumbbell should give you a chance to isolate the middle delt as much as possible and make it do the lion’s share of the work.
The increased workload will go a long way towards improving your muscle growth while helping you to establish a better mind muscle connection with a muscle that often times sorely lacks this. When performed with the lighter weights, you are able to crank out more repetitions and get a metabolic stress reaction. The accumulation of both lactic acid and hydrogen ions in the muscle (the things that cause your muscle to burn when you are performing the exercise) provides a chemical stimulus for growth that cannot and should not be ignored.
That said, lifting light weights alone would rob you of a chance to provide muscle growth and width in the shoulders from an alternative stimulus – heavy weights and progressive overload. This is where the cheat lateral raise comes in. Here you want to swap out the light dumbbell for a heavy one. The initiation of the movement is less about isolated muscle contraction and more about getting more weight to the top of the exercise.
From here, you do your best to eccentrically contract the middle delts to slowly lower the dumbbells back to the starting position. The acceleration of the weight on the concentric part of the lift takes advantage of another growth stimulus – compensatory acceleration – that helps to recruit more type II muscle fibers which are more capable of growing faster than slow twitch fibers.
Either way, my best recommendation for getting wider shoulders fast is that you not only be sure that you lift both heavy and light weights when you perform you shoulder lateral raises but that you immediately start prioritizing whichever you aren’t doing enough of right now. For example, if you lift mostly heavy weights for your shoulders then introducing the lighter dumbbells is going to have a fast impact on the response you see from this exercise.
On the contrary, if you introduce heavy weights to a regimen that is mostly build around lifting lighter weights then you will be shocked at how quickly your shoulders respond to the cheat lateral raises. Just remember to not become attached too much to a single way of loading your shoulders and be sure to include both if you want to see the best results from your training.
If you want to build not only your best shoulders but every muscle in your body faster, then it is time you start putting science behind every workout and exercise you do. I’ve done that for you already in a step by step plan available at athleanx.com at the link below. Click there and grab the ATHLEAN-X Training System and start training like an athlete (and growing like one) today.
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How do I strengthen my leg / knee muscles? I’m 78 years old. I had an incident where I collapsed and passed out momentally. Now my legs, especially my left knee is weak. I am doing stair step exercises that help, but progress is slow. I can do a 5 inch step fine, but when I attempt a 10 inch step, my knee tends to collapse. I usually have something to help me. Any suggestions? Thanks.
45 is a little too heavy
Does this kill my gains?
https://youtu.be/uOibNiuD6Uk
Thank you sir💪🏼
🙏🙏🙏
I was able to get broad shoulders by going outside
and that's why they shrank
Btw, so to make sure, the workout is keep going until you burnout? Any sets or Reps recommended?
The moment when you realize the first dumbbell wasn't the heaviest one….😬
I just click like. And it turned from 93K to 94K. I didn’t know my likes were worth that much. Hmmmm.
How to become Dorito 🔺️
I like the fact he has obvious female sloped shoulders as an invert would. As a biological male my shoulders are wider than his and I don’t train or use roids. Go biological or go home
Theyre all “light weights” baby!!!!!!
Step one, don't listen to this pinhead
This dude is like 5% 🔥😭
Super slow method would work
Why I only train shoulders
https://youtube.com/shorts/pyyHRh3fM-I?feature=share
People always saying he use fake weights….if i can get a body like that lifting plastic……..then im game …i jus subscribed
Words cannot describe how much I respect Jeff and his athletic wisdom.
hey friends
I'm a super skinny guy, i have strength and powerful biceps(compare to my rest of body) but in shoulders, I'm nothing i even can't simply do excercises you just did in video (even with a damn 5kg dumbbell).
so i need your help in this situation, what excercises (or anything) can i do for building more muscles in shoulders area?
How to get wide shoulders, but has narrow shoulders 🤔
Markus Ruhl is the man for delts!
Sounds just like Chael Sonnon
Bench press
He uses 15 pounds or sometimes 10 ok I’m going to use 1 pounds then 👍🏻
Hey man. Thanks for the videos. Really took my work out to the next level and strengthened my understanding of building healthy muscle. Killer work ! 🙏🏼
This guy is not big and this guy is not strong. He is only lean. It’s cute really, my girlfriend does the same thing
Jeff your my freakin hero. No bs, no joke. I am FINALLY making some steady progress in the gym thanks to you. Thank you so much! 🕉🙏🏻🕉
Lol make your shoulders wider? Seriously dude? Unless they have shoulder transplants you cannot make your shoulders wider. You can developer then buy wider? Impossible!!
Genetics helps
This geezer is a weed… My leg is wider than his body!! He bores me
Thank you for your wisdom. The way you explain the workout means a lot to someone learning ( like me)
Get run over by steam roller make shoulder extra wide build maximum shoulder development
Nice! Thank you!
Him fake hard breathing so we humans don't feel too intimidated. 🤣
Thanks for the vid!
iv done a super set for lateral raises for years where I start with:
10 reps at 40lbs
15 reps at 25lbs
20 reps at 15 lbs
and do 3 sets of that, iv gotten good results
then gotta hit those face pulls
Oh lord my aching rotator cuffs
He has caused muscular imbalance by training only his right delts, he didn’t do the other side
How do you gain thinner shoulders?