5 Best Exercises for Men to Get Wide Shoulders

A well-defined shoulder is a symbol of a muscular physique. Shoulder exercises give you a tapered contour along with a leaner look. By lifting weights, therefore, you push your muscles to become bigger and stronger.

To start growing your shoulders, you must know the exercises that focus on all three delts—anterior, lateral, and rear. Shoulder exercises make you look broader.

The three shoulder delts together form a rounded boulder-shoulder look which is often what bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts chase.

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5 Shoulder Exercises to Broaden Your Shoulders

Here are 5 shoulder exercises that you should incorporate into your workout routine.

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1. Overhead Press

The overhead press is the most common pick for compound exercises for the shoulders. This movement enables you to engage your anterior and lateral deltoids along with your triceps.

However, you must be careful that your triceps do not take over. It’s important to keep your shoulders engaged and pumped during the exercise.

Here is a guide to doing an overhead press.

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2. Lateral Raise

You can do lateral raises with dumbbells, barbells, or the cable pulley machine.

Regardless of what you choose, you must understand that this focuses on your lateral delts. If you try to lift extremely heavy weights, you might suffer injuries.

To be safe, use a lighter weight and do a higher number of rounds. Your lateral delts can be worked under a safe level of pressure. This has been shown to produce better results than lifting heavier weights with fewer rounds.

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3. Front Raise

If you want to focus on your anterior deltoids, the go-to exercise should be the front raise. Similar to lateral raises, you can do front raises with dumbbells, barbells, and cables.

Ideally, this exercise should be done with dumbbells as it allows you to pick more weight, but you can choose whichever.

You must use the full range of motion when you’re doing front raises to completely engage the muscles forming the lateral delts. Your arms move from the forehead to the middle of your belly or slightly below.

You can find the guide for doing front raises here.

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4. Upright Row

When you’re done with lateral and anterior delts, the next focus is on the rear delts.

Usually, the rear delts get full workout during the back routine days as several compound exercises engage the rear delts. But, the upright row specifically targets your rear delts.

The upright row isn’t recommended for everyone, especially those who cannot control the weight as you lower the weight. A sudden jerk can lead to fatal injuries. It’s better to begin with a lower weight and understand the exercise. Only when you’ve mastered the form should you move to heavier weights, but even then it’s better to cap the weight at one point and increase the number of reps if required.

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5. Face Pull

Another pick of the shoulder exercises for rear delts are the face pulls. In fact, it is more commonly used for rear delts than upright rows.

You can only do face pulls with the cable pulley machine, using the ropes.

To ensure your rear delts are reaping the optimum benefits, squeeze your shoulder blades together when you pull the weight and control the negative as you lower the weight.

You can find a guide for doing face pulls here.

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Bottom Line

The interesting thing about these shoulder exercises is that you can do them with the equipment of your choice or with free-weight. With these exercises, you can be sure you are engaging the right muscles and building the muscle–mind connection.

Along with making your arms look bigger and broader, they work all three delts instead of just the lateral or the anterior delts.

Finally, you must couple the shoulder exercises with diet, rest, and hydration to ensure proper development and growth of the muscle group.