How To Build Your Shoulders & Make Them Bigger

Just like that, we are a month into summer! I spent most of spring taking a creative break as I finished the big project that I mentioned in one of my posts last year. An official announcement will be coming out this summer. During spring, I honed in with my gym routine. I’m a lot stronger than I was pre-injury, my bench is moving and stability has never been better. I adapted my training to focus on certain muscle groups that are lacking in strength and size. One of those muscle groups are my shoulders. Currently I’m following a powerlifting-only programme, which I have never done before, and seeing the changes in my performance has made me think about competing again.

We are in a new month and a new quarter. If the first half of this year didn’t go as planned, think of July as your second January. An opportunity to start fresh and to realign yourself with your goals. If the systems that you had in place didn’t work in the first half of 2025, this is your chance to recalibrate your strategy. Figure out why your systems didn’t work, what you need to do to make them work and how to make the rest of this year your success year. This is your fresh start to surge through the summer and not slump it. Give yourself the best fighting chance for the next 90 days to achieve some of the goals. By October, hopefully you will find your rhythm and continue building on that momentum.

Training Upper Body

In the past, most women didn’t like to train upper body. I want to say that has changed as I see more and more women doing back day or back workouts. That could be because I am in the fitness and wellness space and I see this all the time both online and offline. However, a small majority of women still don’t like training the anterior upper body. I’m talking about chest, shoulders and triceps.

When I first started training, back and shoulders day was my absolute favourite. I would train those two muscle groups two times or three times a week if I could. The idea of having wide and round shoulders was very attractive to me and it still is today. Once I realised that having a balanced physique meant that I needed to train all muscle groups equally. Or prioritise one group, depending on my goals, my mindset switched. I taught myself that training my chest and my triceps would bring out that aesthetic look of my shoulders. Then I got into powerlifting and you train your shoulders multiple times a week.

As I learnt more about the science of fitness and nutrition, I have executed different approaches to build up weaker parts of my body. I made sure to build them into strengths. Moreover, I learnt that you cannot out-train a bad diet so I focused on cleaning up my diet. That led me to seeing the results much faster, clearer skin and having more confidence in the way I carry myself. In sum, it brings me into this new series helping you transform your body one muscle group at a time. So far, I have covered quads and hamstrings.

What Are The Shoulders

The joints that connect your arms to your torso are your shoulders. It is the most flexible joint in the body as it is a ball and socket joint, which means it can move in many different directions. Your shoulder muscles are responsible for supporting and stabilising the most flexible joint in your body. As you use your shoulders so often for rotation and elevation, they are most prone to injuries. When you train your shoulders properly, in tandem with your chest muscles, you are going to boost your overall athleticism including your performance in and out of the gym. The stronger your shoulders, the more stronger your shoulder joint will be and the ability to carry things overhead.

Check Out The Pinterest Dumbbell Only Series

The Anatomy of the Shoulders

To understand how to train your shoulders properly, you need to know what the muscles are and how they function. The shoulders, also known as the deltoids (delts for short), are made up of three heads: the front (anterior), the side (lateral) and the rear (posterior). The front delts help to extend your arms forward and are extremely important for strength in the bench press and overhead press. The side delts help to move your arms laterally, and up and down. The side delts are the muscles that are responsible for the width of the shoulders, improve shoulder stability and bring out the rounded and defined aesthetic look. Lastly, we have the rear delts. The rear delts help to externally rotate your arms and extend them backwards. These muscles are responsible for preventing shoulder rotation in the bench press and providing stability during pulling movements.

Importance of the Shoulders

Strong shoulders are essential. They are used for everyday tasks from lifting your bag into the overhead bins on the plane to carrying your food shopping from the store to your house. They improve your posture. I remember when I was my last year of college and one of my roommates tore a muscle in her shoulders. She couldn’t do anything for the next 6 to 8 weeks. That’s when I realised how fragile your shoulders are and prone to injury, if you don’t keep them strong and healthy. In terms of well-being, they play a very active and functional in our day-to-day lives. In terms of aesthetics, clothing fits better on people with broad and rounded shoulders. If you have desk job, unconsciously hunching over towards the screen can make your shoulders a lot of weaker and ruin your posture.

Six Types of Shoulder Joint Movements

There are six joint movements that are effective and necessary to train, if your goal is to build up your shoulders for strength, size and overall health. All of these joint movements are popular and you’ve most likely done some of these exercises yourself or seen people in your gym do them. These six joint movements are: flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, external rotation and internal rotation. All these joint movements improve your shoulders range of motion.

Shoulder Flexion and Extension

Shoulder flexion is the movement of the shoulder in a forward motion, for example, grabbing a book from the bookshelf. It is a key movement pattern to strengthen the front delts and improve overall range of motion. Shoulder extension is the opposite to flexion. It is the movement of the shoulder directly behind the body, for example, passing the baton during a relay race.

Shoulder Abduction and Adduction

Shoulder abduction and adduction are the movements of the shoulder towards the body and, to lift it away from the body. A good example of these two movements used simultaneously are jumping jacks and any variation of side lateral raises. The adduction movement can be seen through exercises that targets the front (anterior) part of the upper body, whilst the abduction movement targets the back (posterior) part of the body.

Shoulder External and Internal Rotation

Penultimately, the external rotation is the movement of the shoulder away from the body’s centre line. For example, a tennis player backhand stroke requires the external movement of the shoulders. Lastly, the internal rotation is the opposite to external rotation. It is the movement of the shoulder towards the body’s centre line. For example, reaching into the front pocket of jacket or reaching across your body.

Shoulders Exercises To Add In Your Routine

Now that you understand the science behind the shoulder muscles, let’s get into what you are really here for. Any variation of shoulder exercises, whether seated or standing, will definitely add size and strength to your shoulders. I’m sure that some of these exercises are already staples in your rotating shoulder programme. If you want your shoulders to become well-defined, stronger and well-proportionate to the rest of your body, you need to incorporate a variety of exercises that target the three head and all six joint movements. Here are some of the best exercises to build up and increase their size. For all these exercises, remember to squeeze at the top of the movement and control the weights at the descent.

Front Delt Exercises

Upright Rows

Upright Row is probably an exercise you won’t see in many gyms. The reason for this is because it can hurt your shoulders if you lack the range of the motion. In this video, I’m demonstrating how you can do it with the cable machine, but you can do it with both dumbbells and barbells. It targets both the front delts and side delts; it also an example of the shoulder flexion and shoulder adduction. For muscle building and endurance, try 3 to 4 sets of 12 to 15 reps.

Shoulder Press (any variation)

Shoulder Press is the most utilised exercise for this muscle group in every gym. That’s a general statement but I’m pretty sure it is a fact. You can do this exercise seated on a bench or on the floor. Completed with a Smith machine, dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells, machines etc. You catch my drift. I prefer to do it seated on bench to stop myself from using too much momentum from my legs. It primarily targets the front and side delts. However, if you want to target all three heads and use the abduction movement as well as the flexion, I would recommend doing the Arnold Press.

Side Delts Exercises

Side Lateral Raises (any type of equipment/variation)

Side Lateral Raises are my second favourite exercises to target the shoulders. It hits the side delts only and is an example of the both the shoulder abduction and adduction. This is not an exercise that you can jump easily in weight. I would say this exercise is about fine tuning the details in wide, rounded shoulders. I would recommend 3 to 4 sets of 12 reps. If you want to add partials, pause sets, drop sets etc. for an additional burn, go for it.

Cable Cross Body Lateral Raise

The cable tower machine is such a versatile piece of equipment that can be found in pretty much every gym. This exercise targets the side delts only and is an example of both the shoulder abduction and adduction joint movements. I recommend going lighter on this exercise and doing more reps as it isolates this muscle. I suggest 3 sets of 20 reps.

Rear Delt Exercises

The rear delts tend to be the most neglected muscle groups for shoulders because they are at the back and we can’t see them. They are an important muscle group for shoulder health and stability. If these muscles are weak, in comparison, to your front and side delts, I suggest working on turning these weaknesses into strengths. These are the best two exercises that do that.

Face Pulls

Face Pulls are fantastic for building and increasing the size of the rear delts at the back of your shoulders. They are an isolation exercise that is done on the cable machine with a rope attachment. You can pull the rope towards your neck to slightly above your head to target different parts of that muscle. The key thing about this exercise is your grip on the attachment as that can change what you are targeting during this exercise. It is an example of the shoulder abduction joint movement.

Bent Over Fly

Bent Over Fly is a great exercise to build both the rear delts and the upper back muscles. It improves shoulder strength, posture and can prevent injuries. This exercise includes the hip hinge movement that you will see in deadlifts so make sure that your core is braced correctly. It is an example of the shoulder abduction joint movement.

For the shoulder external and internal rotation, these are improved with these other exercises as well as warming up your upper body.

---

I hope that this post has given you the confidence to try some new exercises to target shoulder development and to challenge yourself to make the rest of this year your success year. Make sure to hit that subscribe button to join the community and never miss out on a post. Find me on Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok for more powerlifting and wellness content.

Until next time,

Folakemi