6 Best Full Shoulder Exercises for Men

It’s always beneficial to know about the best full shoulder exercises. In fact, to build 'boulder shoulders', you must work on your shoulder muscles from various angles.

The shoulder has three heads - lateral, rear, and anterior delts. You should aim to work on all three delts to ensure proper development of your shoulder.

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Best Shoulder Exercises for Strength

Here are six of the best full shoulder exercises you should try to ensure that the delts are properly balanced when developing:

1) Overhead Press

One of the first compound movements listed in any shoulder routine is the overhead press. You can do this exercise using a barbell or dumbbell, and it can be a seated or standing overhead press.

Ideally, when you’re pressing the weight overhead, use your shoulders and not your triceps. Even though the overhead press is a compound movement, it works the triceps as well.

It’s best to do this exercise with a lighter weight initially to develop a strong muscle-mind connection. Once you’ve developed that, you can move to heavier weights, but try to maintain the same intensity.

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2) Arnold Press

Another shoulder exercise you can do is the Arnold press. This exercise, named after bodybuilding legend Arnold Schwarzenegger, requires a rotation of the palms to be performed.

To start the exercise, press the dumbbells overhead. While pressing, turn your palms so that they face outwards at the top of the motion. When you lower the weight, turn it again so that it faces you at the starting position.

Ensure that the rotation is from the forearms and not the wrists, otherwise you could injure yourself.

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3) Lateral + Front Raise Shoulder Exercise

This is one of the best full shoulder exercises. The lateral and front raise shoulder workout works your lateral and anterior deltoids.

To do the exercise, take a pair of dumbbells, and raise them laterally. Once you’ve reached the top of the motion, bring your arms together in front of you.

Next, put your arms down in front of you, and raise them again - this is the front raise motion. Extend your arms by your sides again, and put them down beside you to complete one rep. Ideally, you should aim to do high reps with a lighter weight for this exercise.

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4) Face Pull

Many full shoulder exercises focus on the anterior and lateral deltoids. However, rear delts are important to ensure proper development of the shoulder. The face pull does just that.

Face pulls are a cable exercise, which is great for your rear delts. This workout allows you to engage your rear delts and enables you to control the negative much better than using dumbbells.

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5) Shrug

Another part of your shoulders that must be given importance to are traps, which can be done by doing a shrug. Traps are important to work on for balance and to have a proper overall appearance of the shoulders.

You can do shrug using dumbbells or barbells. Keep in mind that you need to pull the weight upwards using your traps and not your forearms or wrists.

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6) Pike Push-up

The pike push-up is one of the best full shoulder exercises and is a bodyweight workout.

You can do a pike push-up as a warm-up or a cool-down exercise. To do this workout, place your legs on an elevated platform while your palms remain on the ground.

Next, raise your glutes slightly so that your body is in an inverted 'V; position. When doing push-ups, be careful that you maintain balance, and push with your shoulders.