Followed diligently, this routine is a sure-fire way to pack some coveted muscle mass on to your deltoid and upper trapezius muscles. In addition, I’ve made sure to include some movements that will increase the strength and stability of the most mobile joint in the human body.

Hanging clean and presses
Let’s begin our shoulder thrashing with a power movement. Personally, I could not care less how strong I am. My goal is to simply look my best. However, powerlifting movements and techniques are often a great way to hit the fast-twitch (type 2B) muscle fibers that are most responsible for hypertrophy (growth)..

The hanging clean and press is the perfect power movement to lead off our shoulder routine. The primary muscles used during this exercise are the medial (side) and anterior (front) deltoids as well as the traps. Secondarily, the posterior (rear) delts, infraspinatus (one of the rotator cuff muscles), and other upper back muscles will be stimulated. That’s a lot of bang for your exercise buck.

Starting position: Begin by grasping a barbell with an overhand grip, hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Stand up straight with the barbell resting in front of you on your thighs.

The exercise: Initiate the cleaning part of the movement by bringing the barbell up and away from your body, with your elbows leading the way, as if you were doing an upright row. As this is more of a power movement, don’t be afraid to use a little push from your legs to get the weight moving. As the bar approximates the level of your chin, bring your elbows down, wrists back and, in essence, catch the bar near your upper chest or collarbones. Feeling clumsy? Don’t worry; it takes everyone a few sessions to get it down pat.

The pressing part of the movement is a bit simpler. Press the bar straight up overhead until your arms are almost fully extended. Then, under control, lower the bar back to your upper chest.

To conclude the movement, reverse the cleaning portion of the movement. Begin the reversal by very slightly pushing the bar up and away from you while simultaneously bringing your elbows up. Then begin to lower the weight while using your shoulders and upper trapezius to control the descent. Resist the temptation to simply let the bar fall back to the starting position.

Perform four progressively heavier sets of between three and six repetitions each.

Caution: If you experience a rather sharp pain near the front and top of your shoulder during the cleaning portion of this movement, you may suffer from shoulder impingement syndrome. If so, look for a qualified doctor to help you overcome this condition. In the meantime, and this should go without saying, don’t do this exercise.

Caution: To avoid injury to your lumbar spine, do not overarch when pressing the barbell overhead. Keeping your abs tight will help alleviate this, as will wearing a weight belt, which you should do on your heavier sets.
Tip: Perform the cleaning portion of the movement as rapidly and explosively as possible. You will also press the weight very quickly. Reverse the movements fairly quickly but under control.

Scaptions
If lateral raises and front raises had a child, it would be called scaption. This is an exercise I stole from rehab circles to use in bodybuilding. While front raises target the anterior delts and lateral raises hit the medial delts, scaption disperses the stimulation equally to both the anterior and medial deltoids.

Scaption means abduction (raising the arm away from the body) in the scapular plane (which is 30 to 45 degrees forward from horizontal). Placing the humerus (upper arm) in the plane of the scapula puts the shoulder in its most optimal position with minimal stress on the joint. That makes scaption a very safe exercise for all but the worst shoulder ailments.

Although this exercise can be done seated on a bench or standing, we’re going to take it to another level by doing the exercise on a physio ball. This will not only serve to give a little extra work to our core stabilizing muscles of the trunk, it will also enhance stimulation of the rotator cuff and other stabilizing muscles of the shoulder complex.

Starting position: Begin the scaption movement seated on a physio ball with dumbbells in each hand just above the sides of the ball, palms facing down (pronated grip).

The exercise: Using the deltoid muscles, raise the dumbbells up until your arms are parallel to the ground. Make sure to perform the movement in a plane that’s between 30 and 45 degrees forward of the plane in which you would perform lateral raises straight out to the sides (called the frontal plane). In other words, your arms will travel halfway between straight out to the sides and straight out in front of you.

Once you reach the top position, pause for one full second before lowering the dumbbells back to the starting position under control. This lowering phase should take about three seconds.

Perform three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions each.

Variations
As your balance improves, you can make the scaption exercise more challenging by performing it while kneeling on the physio ball.

If you’re ready to take your balance and coordination to an even higher level, try doing the scaption exercise while standing on the physio ball.

Caution: Exercising on a physio ball can be potentially dangerous, especially if you try to advance too early. Make sure you can sit steadily on the ball before doing scaption or any other exercise on the ball. Likewise, you should be able to steadily kneel on the ball before doing exercises kneeling; and stand on the ball steadily before attempting to exercise while standing.

Caution: Make sure to have the area around the ball clear of any hard or pointed objects in the event you happen to lose your balance and fall. It’s also a good idea to have around the ball padded with exercise mats.

Caution: In case of a puncture, it’s best to exercise on an anti-burst ball that will deflate slowly if punctured. Sissel is a good brand (the type I’m using in the picture) and is available at www.sissel-online.com.

Unilateral dumbbell lateral raises
Since the medial deltoid is most responsible for giving the shoulders a wide appearance, let’s now hit them with an isolation movement: lateral raises. To further enhance the focus and isolation, let’s do them one arm at a time.

Starting position: Begin by holding a dumbbell in one hand beside your hip and bracing yourself with the other hand. With lighter weights it works fine to brace against your own body as Michelle is doing in the picture. I find that as I use heavier dumbbells, it helps my stability if I brace against a fixed object like a pole or a weight rack.

The exercise: Start the movement by raising the dumbbell straight out to the side. As with scaption, stop when your arm is parallel to the ground, pause for a second lower, and lower the dumbbell to the starting position for a count of three.

Perform three sets of eight to 12 repetitions each.

Tip: When raising the dumbbell out to the side, resist the temptation to let your elbow point down and the thumb side of your hand go up. To keep the tension on the medial deltoid and not the stronger anterior deltoid, make sure to keep your elbow pointing straight behind you. In the top position, your wrist and elbow should be level and your thumb should not be higher than your pinky.

Tip: Make sure to avoid shrugging your shoulder with your traps when performing lateral raises. Doing so will rob your medial delts of vital stimulation.

Tip: Do not let the dumbbell come all the way down to your side between each rep. Keeping the dumbbell slightly away from your side at the bottom of the movement will keep tension on the working muscle.

Reverse flyes with external rotation
This movement will finish off our deltoid annihilation by hitting the posterior (rear) deltoids. As a bonus, the exercise will also hit the often neglected infraspinatus and teres minor muscles (two of the rotator cuff muscles). This will help to improve the posture, alignment and function of the shoulder joint.

Starting position: To get into position, lie face down on an incline bench set at an angle of about 30 degrees. Have a dumbbell in each hand with your palms facing your feet (pronated grip).

The exercise: Start the movement by raising the dumbbells toward the ceiling while maintaining a slight bend in your elbows. As you approach the top, finished position of the movement, begin externally (a.k.a. laterally) rotating your arms as if you were attempting to make your palms face forward. Upon reaching the top position, pause for a full second to enhance the contraction of the working muscles before slowly returning to the starting position.

Perform three sets of 15 reps.

Tip: Select a light weight for this exercise, as your forms should be immaculate.

Tip: Keep the reps relatively high on this movement as your goal is to enhance the contractility and coordination of the working muscles, more than the strength.

Dumbbell shrugsbr>To finish off the entire shoulder region, let’s hit the upper traps. It would be equally valid to train upper traps with back. Generally speaking, however, if you’re going to train shoulders by themselves as well back by itself, I would even things out a bit by training upper traps with shoulders as it is a slightly easier workout than back.

As you’ll notice, these are not your garden variety dumbbell shrugs. I have tweaked the movement a bit to really hit the meatiest part of the upper traps—just behind the area of the traps that you see if you are looking at someone from the front.

Starting position: To position yourself for dumbbell shrugs the Dr. Clay way, stand with a dumbbell in each hand and lean forward slightly about 10 or 15 degrees.

The exercise: Begin the movement by shrugging your shoulders straight up toward the ceiling. It helps to imagine you’re trying to bring your shoulders together at a point just behind your head, not in line with your ears as with regular shrugs. Once you reach the top position, pause for a full second before slowly lowering the weight back to the starting position.

Perform one warm-up set of 15 followed by three sets of 10 to 12 reps.

Tip: Avoid lowering the weight so low that it’s simply hanging from your arms with no tension on the working muscle. In other words, don’t go below a point lower than your normal standing posture.

Tip: To maintain your “cool” gym image, please don’t roll your shoulders backward or forward while doing this movement. Doing so is ineffective, slightly dangerous, and will let everyone within sight of you know that you have no idea what you’re doing.

Caution: Avoid jutting your chin forward or extending your neck while doing shrugs.

Caution: Lower the dumbbells slowly and under control. Do not let the weights fall rapidly from the top, contracted position. It not only reduces the effectiveness of the exercise, it could severely damage your cervical spine (neck) and/or the nerves that go to your arms and hands—both of which are not very cool.