Re: Lifting Weights-Shoulders

Hi. In the past I have used several means to strengthen my shoulders. The thing to remember is that the muscle groups all work together, so you will benefit from doing a combination of exercises that also work your chest, upper back, upper arms, and neck. One exercise that comes to mind is push-ups. Obviously, a push-up doesn't concentrate on the shoulders, but it will definitely help.

To stretch my shoulders, I have found that starting out holding barbells and letting the gravity of them stretch the shoulders works well. I generally stretched this way while standing with knees about a foot apart, arms at side and just loosenening the muscles so that the weight pulled down. I suspect you could do this bent over to loosen the upper back area. Shoulder rolls and shrugs also help. Roll your shoulders to the front for a certain number of times, then reverse direction. Next, with or without weight, standing comfortably, knees slightly bent, legs apart, lift your shoulders as high as possible then relax, repeat.

For shoulder exercises, I have done the following:

Upright rows - stand with knees slightly bent, about a foot apart. Holding barbells in front of the body, with the hands facing your body, slowly lift the weight to chest level, then slowly lower to the starting position and repeat.

flyes - stand with knees slightly bent, about a foot apart. Holding barbells at sides, with palms facing body, lift your arms out until your body forms a "T" shape. Lower your arms to starting position and repeat. You can also do flyes while bending the body at the waist. Stand in the same position as the standing flyes then bend and let your arms hang under your torso toward the floor. Lift your arms out as above and repeat.

I have done many other exercises, but won't go into them all, but I have attached a list of some sites with other exercises (some with pictures):
http://www.leehayward.com/art27.htm
http://putere.tripod.com/exer/delt-ex.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/savagefitness/exshoul.html
http://www.fitarnold.dreamstation.com/shoulders.htm

This site has animated gifs so it gets an honored hyperlink:)

http://www.howtobefit.com/shoulder.htm