How many sets do you so for delts?

Flex

Im just wondering what the generall amount of sets and which exercises people do for shoulders. I do alot in proportion to other muscle groups, mainly because Iv started out doing a small number of sets, and graually added more sets or exercises because my weights and reps keep increasing so I doubt Im overtraining.

Anyway, I do 16 sets:
3 sets Military press
3 sets lateral raises
3 sets upright rows
5 sets rear delt rows
2 sets of front raises

Alot of people say its too much, but it works for me. What do other people here do to train their shoulders?

Dragan

Most of my delt workouts look kinda like this

Seat Dumbell Press , 5 sets
Lateral Raises , 5 sets ( sometimes i superset these two )
Rear Raises , 5 sets ( sometimes i will tri set all the above )
Standing press of some sort.

That really all you need. I don't buy upright rows because i just think they are a ****, uncomfortable excercises and that they do very little for you that can't be done better by other lifts.

I don't buy front raises because pressing beats on them enough, and they also get whacked on chest day and like a lot of other people mine or that bit bigger than my rear delts.

g'em

I do pretty much the exact same as Dragan except do cable raise for the medial delt and not standing presses, and usually do 4 sets of each. If you want saomething to really tire the **** out of your delts try a monster set on lat raises- I usually only cope with two of these sets in a single session once a month, it's a great way to shake up any stagnation in your shoulder routine.

Flex

Thanks for the replies guys. I do upright rows aswel because I thought it would be better to hit my lateral delts with 2 exercises, prior to that I had just been doing 6 sets of lateral raises. And also because its a compound exercise. I find doing it with an EZ bar wrecks my shoulders (wrecks them in a good way lol ). Iv been thnkin of cutting out front raise because Iv got the same issue of my anterior delt being more develped than my rear delt.

g'em, whats a monster set? Is it like a drop set?

Cravez

Depends, i like to change the variety of the exercise even if its slight every time i work on shoulders. Today i worked on them and i did: 5 sets of lateral raises, 5 sets of shoulder presses, 5 sets of arnold presses. Other days ill try upright rows, bent over dumbell rear delt raises and military presses.

g'em

Flex wrote:

g'em, whats a monster set? Is it like a drop set?

kinda, except the set is executed like a set of drops in quick succession with no break at all between each set of reps (which means you have to be a complelte gym pig and hoard 5/6 sets of DB's )..

12 reps @ 5kg DB's
10 reps @ 6kg
8 reps @ 7kg
6 reps @ 8kg
6 reps @10kg

now that's just my girly weights of course!! It's a killer, and I'll usually do one after the other with about 2-3 minutes rest in between.

Jak

Well my view on shoulders is they really do not need too much work - certainly never their own session. Much of my chest program and parts of my arm session will all hit shoulders in some way. If I dedicate a session to shoulders - I will lose out on chest day as a result.

However, in terms of basic build and strength, my neck and shoulders were generally way ahead of the rest of me when I started and so never needed much focus to keep in pace with development.

I think shoulders are best combined as 3 or 4 movements in a back session. Worth considering as you vary your mix are ...

DB pull ups (lying over a bench with part raised lifting DB's from floor)
DB seated shoulder press (good solid movement in my view - can go heavy too)
Some class of chins - lots of options which can hit the area
Crucifix - Static hold as the name suggests - I like this at the end of a session for 2 fails.

Gotta run,

JAK

Flex

g'em wrote:

kinda, except the set is executed like a set of drops in quick succession with no break at all between each set of reps (which means you have to be a complelte gym pig and hoard 5/6 sets of DB's )..

12 reps @ 5kg DB's
10 reps @ 6kg
8 reps @ 7kg
6 reps @ 8kg
6 reps @10kg

now that's just my girly weights of course!! It's a killer, and I'll usually do one after the other with about 2-3 minutes rest in between.

Thanks very much for that, Ill give it a try

Reyman

I'm in agreement with Dragan that upright rows are a 'suspect' exercise.

They feel very uncomfortable and I've seen them implicated before as a significant cause of shoulder impingement.

Apparently the interaction of shoulder rotators and deltoids induced can be a cause of long term shoulder harm.

Transform

Totally agree with Jak - over work of front delts due to chest exercises so stick to big lifts on a standing or seated press.

Personal fav is standing one arm press with 30kg for 5 sets (each arm) 6-8reps.

Upright rows - can cause lots of problems for rotator cuffs.