Sculpt Your Shoulders Without Pain (Part 1 of 2)

There are 3 parts to your shoulder: the anterior deltoid, the middle deltoid, and the posterior deltoid.  Each one of the heads works the shoulder joint a little differently.  The most common exercise for shoulders is lateral raise.  Although the lateral raise does target the middle deltoid, there are other exercises you can do to target the anterior deltoid and posterior deltoid.

Furthermore, shoulder pain is an issue many of your clients are going to experience.  One way to limit shoulder pain is the keep all exercises in the "safe zone."  This means that if your client is experiencing shoulder pain, they should NOT lift anything over their heads nor should they bring their elbows to far below their spine on a bench press or dumbbell press.  Your clients should avoid the zone marked "C" in the picture.

Besides staying in the safe zone, another goal is exercising your rotator cuff muscles.  This will strengthen the shoulder capsule and minimize pain.  External rotations and internal rotation should be included in all shoulder workouts. 

On Friday, we'll go into more detail about exercising your anterior deltoid and posterior deltoid.