The Best And Worst Shoulder Exercises

Here is a brief summary of the transcript: The transcript is a video by Jeff Nippard ranking popular shoulder exercises for muscle growth. Key points: - Jeff ranks exercises into tiers from S (best) to F (worst). His criteria include tension, feel, smooth resistance, and progression potential. - He reveals his top exercise for each delt head: front delt is machine shoulder press, side delt is cable lateral raise, rear delt is reverse cable crossover. - Top exercises include: machine shoulder press, dumbbell shoulder press, cable lateral raises, reverse cable crossovers. - Worst exercises include: front raises, banded lateral raises. - Jeff's #1 overall shoulder exercise is the cable lateral raise for its effectiveness, ease of use, and ability to target the side delts. - The goal is to find exercises that maximize tension in the stretched position for each delt head. Cables and machines often achieve this most effectively.

What are the best and worst shoulder exercises for muscle growth? Well, in this video, I'll be ranking the most popular movements on a tier list, from s for super to f for fail. And at the end, I'll crown one exercise as the best of the best, raising it to s tier plus. And I'll pick one exercise as the worst of the worst. For a shoulder exercise to get into s tier, it needs to provide high tension, especially in the stretched position. It needs to feel good, which means it doesn't cause shoulder pain. And it has a smooth resistance profile, and it needs to have a simple progression. If you can't add weight or reps over time, I'm knocking it down. The deltoids have three main the anterior or front head, which raises the arm up to the front the lateral or side head, which lifts the arm out to the side, and the posterior or rear head, which pulls the arm back. Because these heads can be thought of as almost separate muscles, I'm gonna reveal my number one exercise for each head as we go hidden behind these three doors. And right before we get into it, I'm stoked to announce that my first published hard copy book is officially available for pre order. It's called the Muscle Ladder, and it has 15 chapters, with each chapter representing a different rung on the ladder. The book covers everything training related, and I also included a full chapter on nutrition and supplements, plus a huge chapter on training technique with demos for every fundamental exercise. And I'm also including 20 free programs for every experience level in the book. I went with a traditional publisher because I wanted the book to be as high quality as humanly possible. And you can pre order it wherever you buy books and lock in the best price guarantee. I'll put a link to that in the description box down below. Okay, let's start with the most popular shoulder exercise you'll see in gyms all across the globe every day, the standing dumbbell lateral raise. Now, because the side delts are more important for developing an x frame physique with a tapered look, you'll probably notice that I do slightly favor exercises that target the side delts over exercises that target the front delts. And that's because your front delts already get hit with any chest work in your program, and they're usually overdeveloped relative to to the side and rear heads. I like the dumbbell lateral raise because it's super simple and you can get them done quickly. You can grab a pair of dumbbells a lot faster than you can set up a cable, especially if you do cables one arm at a time. So I do think they are the most time efficient shoulder exercise, but I don't think they're the most effective shoulder exercise. That's because you have zero tension on your side delts at the bottom when they're the most stretched, and you don't reach peak tension until your arms are at 90 degrees when the delts are most shortened. But despite this limitation, they'll still clearly grow your shoulders. This has been proven by real world examples of bodybuilders who've built huge side delts from dumbbell laterals. And I still do these myself whenever I'm pressed for time. But because of the slightly suboptimal tension curve, I'm putting these in b tier. However, if you lean against something like a bench or a rack, you suddenly modify the resistance curve to place more tension on your side delt when it's most stretched. I think that this is the most effective way to do lateral raises with dumbbells. The lean in dumbbell lateral raise is going in a tier. Leaning away might shift some emphasis away from the muscles of the rotator cuff and onto the lateral delt, depending on how you interpret this study. But it still has the issue of not placing high enough tension in the stretched position. So I'm putting these in b tier as well. Okay, here's a spicy one. The super rom lateral raise. I picked these up from Doctor Mike Israetel when we trained shoulders together. And, man, they definitely lit my delts up. I think this is a very rare movement where you actually get the side delt fully contracted. I like that. And even though the trend of the current evidence is converging on the stretch being more important than the squeeze, there's actually very little direct evidence on the shoulders about this, so I think these are worth trying. That said, because they have the same resistance curve issues as the standard dumbbell lateral raise, they're not quite good enough to get into a tier. I'm putting the super rom lateral raise in b tier. I'll get to cables in a second, but first I want to get the most controversial one out of the way. All right, people who like the overhead press, really like the overhead press, and I can see why. A strong OHP is one of the most impressive feats of strength that youll see in the gym. Actually, id say out of all the barbell lifts, Im more impressed by a big overhead press than I am by a big squat, a big bench or a big deadlift. But the question is, how effective is the exercise for building 3d delts. Well lets see. It does provide high tension on the shoulders. In the stretched position you can overload it extremely well. Even though the lift tends to be a stubborn lift, you can usually add a little weight or a rep, or at least improve your technique in some way. And I think that once you nail the technique down, it's a very gratifying lift. So that's all awesome. However, it does have two downsides. For one, it's very anterior delt dominant. When we look at activation patterns across the delt heads, you see that the side and rear heads aren't activated much with the overhead press. And for two, because you're standing, it's not the most stable. This means your lower body and your core will have to work to keep your balance, which will shift some tension coming from the bar away from your shoulders. That's not a deal breaker, but it's probably not ideal from a bodybuilding standpoint. So all things considered, I think I like the barbell overhead press more than a lot of science based hypertrophy heads, but I think I like it less than some power building purists. I'm putting it in b tier. Plus, I think it's overhated from the science crowd and I think it's overrated from the barbell crowd. Now, if you do them seated, you do fix the stability issue since you no longer have to worry about your balance. But since they're still very front dell dominant and there's something about the seated OHP that just isnt as satisfying as the standing OHP. Im going to leave these in b tier as well. If you switch the barbell out for dumbbells, I think a few things improve. For one, you can get your sets done faster. You can grab a pair of dumbbells a lot faster than you can set up a barbell. For two, you can get a bit more range of motion at both the bottom and at the top, especially if you allow the dumbbells to converge and free. I think youll get a little more side delt involvement with dumbbells because they have to activate to keep the dumbbells from falling forward or backward. And so I'm going to put these in a tier. The machine shoulder press is a personal favorite. If you can find a good machine that gets your delts into a deep stretch, I do find that it feels better than dumbbells. And also since it's less dependent on technique and coordination, you can get your delts all the way to failure without losing control of the weight. It's still going to be very front delt dominant, but as a vertical pressing option for hypertrophy, this is usually my go to. These days it's going in a tier plus, and it's also my number one exercise for the front delts, making it our first reveal behind door number one. If you don't have a good shoulder press machine, my next go to would be the seated dumbbell shoulder press. All right, this is a cool exercise you may have seen recently on Arnold's instagram. I'll call it the Arnold style side lying dumbbell raise. It looks a bit odd, but I actually really like it. Unlike a standing dumbbell lateral raise, you get high tension while your delta stretched and because you're locked in against a bench, you'll be nice and stable. You'll get a huge range of motion and you should get a great side delt pump. Here, I'm putting these in a tier. For the record, front raises of any kind, so dumbbell cable or machine are all going in d tier. I think that if you have any pressing in your program, your front delts are already getting more than enough work so they don't need any extra isolation. That said, if you're one of the rare few with underdeveloped anterior delts, or if you can't do presses for whatever reason, these will be your go to the Atlantis standing machine lateral raise is amazing because it feels so smooth and you get this even consistent tension on the side delts throughout the range of motion. It's easy to add a little weight or a rep from week to week. And since I've been using it, I've actually gotten so much stronger with it that I'm getting pretty close to maxing out the weight stack. The only minor snag is that since you can't move your arms across your body, you won't get quite as good of a stretch as you will with cables or even with the Arnold lying raise. So it's very close to s tier, but I'm gonna tentatively knock it back to a tier plus, because of the overload and the feel, it's still an exercise that I do every week though the seated machine lateral raise is similar and I include it as well, but for whatever reason, having the pads higher up on my arms doesn't feel quite as good. That might be because the moment arm to the shoulder is so short I have to load it with more weight and that actually cranks my shoulders a bit. I still like these, but I think they're in between a tier and b tier. I'll be picky and say b tier alright, the cable lateral raise is incredible because as long as you set the cable at around hand height, it'll provide maximum tension on the side delt while it's most stretched. That's because you get the highest tension whenever your arm and the cable form a 90 degree angle. Perhaps more importantly though, I find that cable lateral raise just feels excellent. You get that nice even tension on your side delts throughout the range of motion. I personally find I can connect with my side delts even better if I use wrist cuffs. That's because even though my grip won't be a limiting factor here, my forearms still get a big pump and that takes away some of my focus from my delts. But then if I just have a floating hand with nothing to hold onto, it feels a bit awkward. So I hold onto a lacrosse ball with the cuff. This might be too gimmicky for some of you, but I love them. You really can't go wrong with a cable lateral raise whether you do them with a standard d handle or with cuffs, and that's why they're going straight to s tier. In fact, I would say this is my favorite side delt exercise of all, making it the second reveal behind door number two. The cable y raise actually gives you an even bigger range of motion where you sweep the cable up and out and back and it's also going in s tier. The only reason it isn't my number one pick is that some people do find them a little more awkward to learn. The behind the back cuffed lateral raise is the most gimmicky looking exercise that I actually do, but I think it's amazing. Its main advantage over the standard cable lateral raise is that you get to knock out both arms at once, which is twice as time efficient. To set it up, just hook your wrists into the cuffs. Optionally, grab a pair of lacrosse balls and step over one of the cables while spinning around and crossing the cables over behind your back. Then step forward and raise the cables out and slightly forward. Who cares what it looks like? If it works, it works. These are going in s tier. The banded lateral raise is my least favorite lateral raise option and I rarely include it these days. Similar to the dumbbell lateral raise, it provides zero tension in the stretch and maximum tension at the top. Unless all you have is a band. I do think dumbbells, cables or machine laterals would be a better choice. These are going in c tier. The upright row is definitely an overhated exercise. It's going to target both the upper traps and the side delts with a little bit of biceps involvement. I prefer to do these on cables with a rope because I can sweep the handles out as I row. As long as you have healthy shoulders, there's no evidence that they contribute to shoulder issues. I'm going to put these in b tier as a delt builder. They don't rank higher because even with the cables, the upper traps will start to take over, so it's hard to get the delt fibers to true exhaustion. They're still a great overall yoke builder though, and I am a fan of upright rows. The reverse pec deck is an amazing rear delt exercise. It provides consistent tension throughout the range of motion and because your chest is braced, you'll be directing all that tension coming from the stack into your rear delts. I actually prefer to do these sitting sideways because you'll get a much deeper stretch. The downside is that you'll need to do each arm one at a time. That means it'll take a bit longer. You can superset each arm though, so while one side is working, the other side is resting and you can just go back and forth without much rest in between. My instinct is to put these in a tier I but I think if you can lock in that sideways position, they deserve to be in s tier. The rope face pull will target the rear delts really well, especially if you set up the rope a little lower, take an underhand grip and externally rotate your shoulders as you pull. Kind of like doing a rear double biceps pose. My minor gripe though is that it's just really hard to get your mid traps to not take over. No matter what cues you use, your mid traps are going to be active. That's not necessarily a bad thing because you do want your mid back to grow as well, but then your rear delts might not be the limiting factor. I still think its a great exercise to include since itll give a big stretch on the rear delts. They feel good and theyre solid for overload. Rope face pulls are going in a tier for rear delt growth. Bent over reverse dumbbell flys have the same problem as dumbbell lateral raises zero tension at the bottom when the delts are stretched. I still think theyre a good option if you dont have access to cables or if youre really time constrained. And I actually still do them myself when im in a hurry. Oddly enough, my rear delts always get really sore from these too. They'd probably be in a tier, but because there's not quite enough tension in the stretch, I've got to knock them back to b tier. All right. The reverse cable crossover. Amazing stretch on your rear delts, especially if you cross your arms over at the top. Enormous range of motion with nice even tension throughout the range. As long as you hold the cables themselves and not the handles, it should feel nice and smooth and you shouldn't run into any clanging as your arms cross over. And then to avoid any left to right muscle imbalances, you can alternate which arm you cross over on top from set to set. As long as you focus on sweeping the cables out rather than yanking them back, you should feel a massive connection with your rear delts. These are amazing and they're easily going into s tier. And that also makes them the third reveal behind door number three as my number one rear delt builder. And if out of all these, I had to pick one exercise as the worst of the worst, I guess it had to be the front raise. Not because it's so bad for muscle growth, but rather because I think it's redundant in most cases. Still not bad enough to get into f tier though, because I do think it can have its place. And if I had to pick one exercise as the best of the best for overall shoulder development, I think I'd go with the cable lateral raise. It's easy to do, it's super effective and it ticks all the boxes for hypertrophy. Now, do you know the best and worst quad exercises for muscle growth? If not, you gotta check out my latest tier list video over here where I rank 20 different quad exercises. Also, don't forget to pre order my new book, the Muscle Ladder. You're interested in that? Subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you guys all here in the next one.