Just when you thought you had the perfect weekly workout routine nailed down, new and inventive exercises hit the market that offer plenty of reasons to either add this routine or replace an exercise you’ve been doing for a long time.
In this case, we’re talking about the shoulders – an incredibly important muscle group as the shoulders are responsible for enabling a wide variety of upper body movements. If you can effectively build up all three sections of your shoulder muscles (front, middle, and back), you will appear wider and fill your t-shirts and shirts properly.
The latest shoulder workout that we think you should definitely try comes from 49-year-old fitness trainer Paul Sklar. Paul regularly posts videos of himself exercising, often using routines, tricks, and hacks he has developed, all with the common goal of helping you make those gains.
Check out the shoulder workout series from fitness trainer Paul Sklar in the video below
What he calls his “all-time favorite shoulder and trap series,” Paul’s fairly brutal shoulder workout with a barbell with some extra weight and two back-to-back exercises. These are a clean press and an overhead press.
A clean refers to the clean lifting in Olympic weightlifting. While an Olympic powerlifting trainer should be the only person teaching you how to do it effectively, it is more likely if you want to lift serious weight. In the case of Paul’s shoulder training, the relatively light bar should mean you can follow a few simple instructions.
Starting with the dumbbell hanging in front of your thighs then you want to bend your knees slightly and push up, using the force generated to lift the bar up to your shoulders and collarbone. It is often suggested that the clean lift is a pulling motion, as it is believed that it is your shoulders and traps that pull the bar up. However, much of the movement relies on the force you create through your hips and legs, making it more of a pushing movement.
With the barbell on your shoulders, you now want to do an overhead press. This requires you to stand straight and lift the barbell above your head using your shoulders and traps.
Paul says that when you do the overhead press, you want to make sure that you keep your glutes and core tight. Also make sure that your elbows stay under your wrists to increase the power transfer. “
His routine requires you to do a clean lift followed by an overhead press. Then a clean lift with two overhead presses. The single clean remains constant throughout the movement, while the overhead press is increased by one repetition to a maximum of five repetitions.
Paul adds, “If you do it right, you should be barely able to move the bar at the end of the series.” If you’re having trouble increasing the number of reps on the overhead press, you can incorporate the push press, which involves lowering your knees Bend and push up while pressing overhead to maintain momentum.
If this is your first time trying this series of shoulder workouts, be sure to keep the weight to a minimum. Your muscles inevitably tire as you go through the reps, and if you try to push the weight over your head and it is too heavy, you run the risk of injuring yourself.
“Pay close attention to the form and watch the winnings happen.”
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