Arnold Schwarzenegger had great shoulders, he had shape, striations and size. Many gym gooers want to build boulder shouders just like Arnold but focus on shape and striations. If you really want to build big shoulders you must concentrate on building the size of your deltoids and gaining muscle mass. Follow these three tips king sized boulder shoulders.
For building muscle I generally stick to the 8-12 rep range, for most bodyparts this is considered the optimal rep range for muscle growth (except for legs which I believe respond better to a slightly higher rep range). However, sometimes muscles respond better when they are subjected to extra heavy weight - for example a weight in which you can do a maximum of 5-6 reps. I would suggest going heavy on overhead press movements only, keep front raises and lateral raises to 8-12 reps or even higher.
Going heavy doesn't mean that you have to go all out on every set, for example if you do 5 sets I would recommend doing 2 sets with lighter weights that you can do 8-12 reps then follow that with 3 sets with heavy weights with 5-6 reps.
One of the biggest problems I see people make when they are training shoulders is they don't vary the workouts enough. Yeah they might switch front raises and lateral raises with different angles, cables and duumbbells - but for the biggest moves like overhead presses they stick to barbells and dumbbells. There are so many versions of overhead presses that you should consider adding to your workout such as Arnold press, overhead smith machine press, behind the neck press, (with either a barbell or a smith machine) and standing milatary presses.
Drop sets or supersets are great with front raises, lateral raises and rear delt raises. However, for overhead press movements the rest-pause technique is one of my prefered techniqes for promoting new muscle growth. The rest-pause technique is great because you don't have change the weight throughout the set. For example to perform this technique use a smith machine with a weight that you can do overhead presses for 6-7 reps. Now start by doing a set of 4-5 reps then stop and rest for 15 seconds, then do another 2-3 reps then rest another 15 seconds, finally perform a final 2-3 reps. By now you will have performed 8-11 reps. So give it a try on your next shoulder workout.
USE REST-PAUSE FOR LAST 2 SETS
STANDARD SETS
SUPERSET
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