Shoulder Workouts For Women
If you’re serious about fitness, bodybuilding, or just looking amazing, then you can’t afford to skip on working out your shoulders. The deltoid muscles (or “delts”) in your shoulders may be small, but don’t underestimate the effect that a set of well-developed deltoids can have on your overall physique.
Today, I want to share with you some of the best ways to get your shoulders into the best shape possible. These range from simple, individual exercises to complete workouts. I’ll be going over these techniques in approximate order of their difficulty levels, from easiest to hardest.
Without any further ado, let’s get started!
Individual Exercises
Before we get into any more complicated workouts, let’s go over some simple exercises you can do to get your delts in shape.
If you’re not very used to lifting weights, then you shouldn’t push yourself too hard and try to lift too much weight at first. Exercise is supposed to burn, but if you’re actually hurting yourself in the process, then it’s totally counterproductive.
With that in mind, here are some great exercises you can easily do, no matter your skill level!
Lateral Raise
This is a super basic exercise that you might already be familiar with. To perform this exercise, just hold a dumbbell in each hand and stand with your arms by your sides, with your palms facing your body and your feet shoulder-width apart.
Then, raise your arms outward until your hands are level with your shoulders, and then slowly let your arms back down again.
One tip to maximizing the gains you get from this exercise is to not hold onto the dumbbells too tightly. Doing so causes more of the weight of the dumbbells to be dispersed over your forearms and hands instead of being concentrated on your delts as you’d want.
You can also perform lateral raises with just one arm at a time if you want.
Front Raise
This is an exercise that is quite similar to the lateral raise, except you start with your arms in front of your body instead of by your sides. The weights should be resting on the front of your thighs.
Then, while keeping your elbows as straight as possible, lift your arms up in front of you until your hands are at shoulder height, and then slowly lower your hands back down. Again, you can also do this exercise with one arm at a time if that’s what you prefer.
Shoulder Press
Again, with this one, you should start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, with a dumbbell in each hand. This time, however, you should hold your arms up and bent at a 90-degree angle so that your shoulders are in line with your elbows and the dumbbells are in line with your head and parallel to the floor.
Then, lift both of the dumbbells above your head simultaneously, with your arms straight up into the air. Hold the dumbbells over your head for about a second, then gradually lower the dumbbells back down to their original position.
Dumbbell Arm Circles
The best exercises are perhaps the simplest ones, and this one is about as simple as it gets. To perform dumbbell arm circles, just start by holding a dumbbell in each hand with your arms extended out towards your sides, with your palms facing down.
Then, while keeping your arms extended, make small circles with your arms. With each set of arm circles you do, change the direction in which you rotate your arms.
Dumbbell Raise to Pull-Apart
This exercise combines aspects of front raises and lateral raises.
Essentially, you begin this exercise by performing a standard front raise. Hold a pair of dumbbells and start with your hands on your thighs, then lift your arms straight up in front of you without bending your elbows.
Then instead of lowering your arms again, open your arms outwards so that your arms are fully extended by your sides. Once you’ve done this, reverse the motion; bring your arms back in front of you, then slowly your hands back down to your thighs.
Band Pull-Aparts
For this exercise, you’ll need a resistance band instead of dumbbells. Other than that, this exercise is really easy.
Start off by holding the resistance band with both of your hands, with your arms extended straight out in front of you and your palms facing the floor. Then just pull your fists past your shoulders. Don’t let the band snap back into place after you’ve fully extended your arms; try and control your arms and let the band return slowly to its original position.
Using a resistance band in this way won’t just work out your shoulders, but it will help you exercise your core too.
Full Workouts
When I talk about “workouts,” I’m referring to a series of exercises that you perform in sequence for better results. Allow me to walk you through a few different workouts that will help you develop your delts in no time.
Before exercising, it’s always important to do a thorough warm-up to get yourself flexible and prepared for the real exercise ahead. A good warm-up will lower the chance of you hurting yourself during exercise.
If you need help figuring out how to complete any of the exercises listed below, you can look up pretty much any exercise that exists through Jefit.com. This site contains a huge database of dozens upon dozens of different exercises, with visual aids to help you make sure that you’re doing everything right.
Basic Shoulder Workout
For this workout, you should complete four separate sets for each exercise listed below (for a total of 16 sets). For the first two sets, you should perform 12 reps, and for the next two, you should perform 10 reps.
Here are each of the exercises you will use to complete this workout:
- Standing front raise
- Seated lateral raise
- Seated dumbbell press
- Reverse delt fly
Overall Shoulder-Building Workout
This is a workout for someone whose skills are a little bit beyond that of a complete novice. If you’re familiar with the basics of good form and you can work out regularly without being in pain afterward, then you’re ready for this workout.
For this workout, you should complete a total of 24 sets or six sets for each exercise listed below. The first set should be 12 reps, and the second set should be 10, sets 3-4 should be 8 reps, and sets 5-6 should be 6 reps.
For this workout, you should use drop sets after both sets of 6 reps. This means that after you finish the 6 reps, you should swap to a lighter dumbbell and continue completing reps until your muscles are too tired to complete any more.
For this workout, you can use the following exercises:
- Overhead press
- Standing lateral raise
- Dumbbell rear-delt row
- Front cable raise
Width-Building Shoulder Workout
This workout focuses on building up your lateral deltoids to make them really stand out.
The width-building workout consists of 25 sets; five sets for each of the exercises below. The first set is 15 reps, the second set is 10, and the final three are 8 reps each.
Here are the exercises that go into this particular workout:
- Standing dumbbell lateral raise
- Bent-over low pulley lateral raise
- Dumbbell lateral raise with slide
- Cable single-arm lateral raise
- Seated behind-the-neck press
For each of these exercises, try and perform each of them behind your neck (but only if your shoulders are capable of handling this).
Bonus: The Bikini Body Workout Program
Doing workouts on your own is fine, but it can be tricky to figure out a workout plan on your own, especially if you’re more of a novice when it comes to working out on your own.
Hiring a personal trainer is one option you have, although that may not be an option for you if you can’t cover the cost of a personal trainer or if you simply don’t have the confidence to work with one (which is totally fine; there are plenty of people out there, both women and men, who aren’t really comfortable with exercising in a public area).
If you’re in this situation, what you’re probably looking for is a comprehensive workout program that you can easily follow along by yourself. I’d like to take a bit of time now to recommend one of these programs to you; namely, the Bikini Body Workout program.
Created by Jen Ferruggia, the Bikini Body Workout program is a complete health and fitness program that contains resources to help you exercise effectively and start eating more healthily. With the Bikini Body Workout Program, you get:
- Access to online instructional exercise videos which you can follow along with at home
- A step-by-step workout guide giving you detailed instructions on how to complete each exercise
- A nutritional guide containing meal plans that will help you burn more fat
- A list of supplements you can take that can potentially help you improve your physical health
- A comprehensive grocery list of nutritious food items so that you don’t have to make one yourself
- The 21-Day Booty Blast program, which contains a series of 10-minute exercises designed to get your butt looking firm and toned
All of the written material comes in the form of e-books,
The Bikini Body Workout program is intended to be suitable for women at all levels of fitness, and as such, it isn’t super intense. You’ll only be expected to work out four days of each week, for no more than 45 minutes a day. Obviously, you have a life outside of fitness and exercise, and the Bikini Body Workout program is designed to be accommodating for women with busy schedules.
The program lasts for a total of 60 days, and if you’re not satisfied with your results at the end of this time, you can contact the program creator for a full refund. It’s only $30 to purchase the program, however, so it’s not a very risky investment either way.
You can read my in-depth review of the Bikini Body Workout program, too.
If you’re interested in checking out the Bikini Body Workout program, you can find everything you want to know about it on their official site by clicking the button below.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are tons of different exercises and workouts you can do on your own if you’re interested in exercising your shoulders and developing a set of toned, good-looking delts.
Whether you’re a fitness novice or a seasoned gym bunny, there’s always something new you can try if you’re looking for ways to get your delts in tip-top shape.
And if you really don’t want to do any of the planning on your own, you can always turn to a program like the Bikini Body Workout program, which will help you get rid of a lot of the guesswork of coming up with a workout and diet plan on your own.
I hope that with the tips I’ve given you today, you’ll be well on your way to coming up with an effective workout strategy!
