Re: Building shoulders

On Sat, 26 Apr 2008, Steve Freides wrote:

"Tom Anderson" <twic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.0804262201350.7852@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Sat, 26 Apr 2008, Steve Freides wrote:

"Tom Anderson" <twic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.0804251331070.15102@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Fri, 25 Apr 2008, Stromata wrote:

So there are 3 basic movements:

Press
Lateral raises
Front raises

And upright rows.

And a lot of other things, too.

Helpful. You're a helpful guy.

When I aim, I aim to please - just wasn't aiming this time. :)

All kidding aside, there is really quite an assortment of exercises one
can do for one's shoulders. You adding one to the original list of
three does not, IMHO, accomplish much.

Hey, it's a 33% increase!

A better discussion would be had if we knew what the goals and tools available to reach them were, e.g., whether isolation or compound movements were favored, what equipment was available (machine, cable, bands, db, kb, bar), if there is any injury history to be considered here, etc.

And that was my point - a list of three, four, or ten shoulder exercises will not be exhaustive, and it will be of completely unknown effectiveness until more information is available about what, and with what, one is trying to accomplish.

I fully endorse the idea of considering as much information as possible when making the decision.

But i don't think there are as many shoulder exercises as you think, because a lot of them are essentially the same exercise. For the isolations in particular - any anterior deltoid isolation exercise is equivalent to any other, since that's what an isolation exercise is. There are two muscles we're talking about here, anterior and lateral deltoid (not sure why we're ignoring the posterior - i guess i think of that has part of the back), and that means that there are just two isolation exercises. You can do them in all sorts of ways, with dumbbells, barbells, machines, cables, bands, kettlebells, swingbells, farm implements, whatever, but they're all the same exercise, at least as far as the deltoid is concerned.

For the compound movements, things are not a lot more complicated. Dumbbell shoulder and Arnold presses, barbell shoulder, military and behind-neck presses, some kind of machine, cable, or band press - they're all the same exercise, with minor and largely irrelevant variations.

tom

--
There are lousy reviews, and then there's empirical shitness. -- pikelet
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