ATHLEAN X Full Shoulder Workout (ALL 3 HEADS!)
If you want a full shoulder workout from athlean x that is designed to help you grow bigger shoulders, then this is a video you will want to watch. Here, Jeff Cavaliere is going to take you through a real time complete workout for shoulders that will train your front delts, middle delts and rear del
What’s up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx. com. I’m going old school here today. We’re going to take you back, turn back the clock to take you through a shoulder workout.
My shoulder workout. And the reason why I’m doing this is because I’ve shared some personal details over the last year and a half or two about my torn bicep and this arm about my torn labrum, completely torn labrum, 50% tear my rotator cuff. Some wonder, Jeff, how do you even train anymore? So, I figured, well, I’ll show you how I even train my shoulder itself because I don’t think you have to compromise the intensity of what you do if you do it right. So, I’m going to take you through this.
Now, even if you don’t have a shoulder problem, I’m going to show you all the tips and tricks that I think about to get the most out of it. I start with a Plate Matrix Warmup. I’m going to show you exactly what it looks like. Then I do my pressing overhead. There’s a reason why I do single arm pressing, we’ll talk about it.
I kind of focus and shift my focus at that point to the middle delt in different variations. And then, of course, I want to tie that all together, the middle with the rear delt if possible. And I do that with a couple of dumbbell exercises. And then always for me, a corrective exercise. So, I’m going to take you through all this.
I’ll take you again through my thoughts so you know exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing, and you can see exactly how I’m doing what I’m doing. So right off the bat, I have to do something to warm up my shoulders because there’s just not as young as they used to. And of course, right off the bat, I don’t know if you can hear this, but all that cracking and popping here that. You hear that? It’s like Rice Krispies.
So, what we’re trying to do is Plate Halo here. All I got is a little 10-pound plate, I’m trying to hug it around the backside of my head, hug it around the front of my face. Once I do that a few times, of course I’m going to reverse direction. And what this is doing is just rotating the shoulders internally and externally. And already I can already start to hear less of that cracking and popping, which makes me know that I’m off to a good start.
Looking for just a general warming of the shoulder joint. From here I do something called Plate Eight. Again, this is not specific, guys, when I do a warmup, I’m trying to see how can I be as efficient as possible. Get some blood flow into the joint, get the joint feeling more lubricated and at the same time warm up the muscles a little bit too so they know that some work is about to be done. So here I’m going again, add an abduction here, abduction here, abduction as I come across and getting the shoulders warm up through those ranges because we’re going to be needing them as I do the other exercises.
Okay. Then feel a little bit of a pump. Next thing we do is a Scoop Press, I’m going to lock in at 90 degrees. I come up and I press. So, it’s not curling it up, I’m locked in at 90, I’m scooping, pressing over top, all in one motion.
And by this point, almost all those little cracks and pops are out. It doesn’t take long, guys, you don’t have to sit there and foam roll for 30 minutes, you know, or do a million different corrective exercises. We’ve just got to get blood flowing, a little bit of synovial fluid in the joint and normally you’ll see that everything starts to feel good. And that’s it. So, back in the day, that was a hell of a lot better than what I used to do when I was a kid.
When I was a kid, I did nothing, I would go jump right into my heavy work sets. So, where I start now is with my Single Arm Dumbbell Overhead Press. Now I like to be on my feet, and the reason why I do it on my feet is because there’s a lot of advantages that come from being here. I can get a little bit of a Push Press, as you’ll see. I can stack my joints a little bit better and again, when you have a problem with your shoulder keeping, keeping them stacked at the top where the wrist is over, the elbow is over, the shoulder is going to feel better and more stable than it is when I break that and I’m outside that plane.
So, what I do is I kind of look up at the dumbbell and follow it. Okay, down here, up and follow. Now, this is my warmup set. Okay? My first warmup set for the exercise.
Just trying to get a little bit of blood flow. Same thing, keep my other arm up over here, I just follow it up. I’m here, they start off, when they finish because of that slight lean, I’m able to keep everything in line right there. Get a little bit of crankiness over here. Now, this is the one I actually tore.
Okay. So, from there, the first one is just for the for the joint and the muscles just to kind of get them to feel more warm. The second one, I go up maybe halfway to my working set, a little bit more than that. And the point here is to get the muscles feeling a little bit more tension so that they are aware of, okay, you’re actually going to start to do some real work. Now, another interesting thing I have to share, the reason why I like to do this version of an Overhead Press, not just for the stacking of the shoulder joint, but I can clean the dumbbell up with two hands from down here near my thighs, easily to my shoulder.
It’s a little bit more difficult when you’re doing a standing press to clean them, when you’ve got a torn bicep all the way up here if you’re using heavier weights. So, because I could use two hands, I get them in position, I’m good to go. I’m not basically limited at all by the tear of the bicep. But again, for all the other reasons, I like this exercise anyway. Okay.
Here now, second point, I’m not looking to fatigue myself. I felt the heavier weight, get done with the second warm up set. Clean it up together. Again, this is not my work. I think people overdo the work.
They, they, they, in building up to the actual work sets they’re doing too much work on sets that don’t even really matter other than serving the purpose to prepare you to do that work. In order to get hypertrophy here, you have to have the overload there. This is not going to create overload; all it’s going to do is wear you out. For the first work set For me, I’ll do 55. So, what I do is I’ll pick a range 6 to 10.
I broaden my range because of my issues and if you have any shoulder issues, I recommend you broaden the range a little bit. Don’t be so, so specific. 6 to 10 is fine. I know it’s going to be heavy. I fell in there; we’ll see how I feel.
If I feel better, I’ll lift the weight — I’ll raise the weight up. If not, then I can keep it right there. But it’s not the pressure of a specific rep number, so clean it up to here. Okay.
So then what I like to do is once I’m sort of at that point of failure, use the legs a little bit to our advantage. A little push, so two push press repetitions, to take it beyond failure. This is the one that’s injured, I didn’t feel any pain in it. Again, felt adequately warmed up, I’m pressing in a good biomechanical position. I don’t feel pain.
I don’t have to feel pain if you’re training within the — with the right precautions. But again, anybody can get something out of this workout. You don’t have to be hurt. One Push Press. I always, always have been just a little weaker on my left side.
Again, injured shoulder here. This one not so hot, but injured shoulder. But right side dominant, so I’m always a little bit stronger on my right side. Control the negative. Convince yourself.
Convince yourself that you don’t have it. On that last one at unless you know you’re go