The Best Shoulder Workout For Defined Shoulders

Are you looking for a shoulder workout that combines calisthenics and resistance training?

My name is Andrew Aurora and I help men in their 20's and 30's build athletic physiques and functional strength with Hybrid Calisthenics

In this post I am going to be showing you one of my favorite routines for building defined shoulders using both weights and calisthenics.

Let's jump right in

Your shoulders are so crucial to almost everything you do in the gym, but also to everything you do in real life 

If your shoulders are nice and developed it will give you that wide-shoulder look that we all want and will also complete the aesthetic of your arms

However if your shoulders are poorly developed, not only will it not look as good, but you will be prone to more injuries that could keep you out of the gym 

Early on in my fitness journey I never did anything for my shoulders. 

To me they just didn't seem all that important, but once I started taking my training serious I realized that your shoulders are one of the most important muscle groups in your body 

They play a massive role in your postural health, your ability to perform pushing exercises correctly, and are also very easy to injure if you train them wrong 

The last thing you want to experience is knee or shoulder injuries in the gym, or else you can be out of the gym for a very long time, as well as down-for-the-count in other areas of your life 

For me, I actually have hypermobile shoulders, so making sure I take care of my shoulders is even more crucial for me. 

Your shoulders are comprised of 3 main heads; Front, side, and rear delts.

Each one of these play in important role in the health and aesthetic of your shoulders, and in this shoulder workout we are going to hit all 3 heads by utilizing calisthenics and weights.

Let's jump right in

Ok, so if you can't do handstand push ups, that is totally cool. 

You can do pike push ups or use the wall, but regardless of what progression of a handstand push up you choose to do, just be sure to do some form of a handstand push up 

The handstand push up is a powerful exercise for building your front delts specifically, but also does a great job of helping you build a lot of strength overall in your shoulders. 

In fact, I find the handstand push up to be a great exercise for overloading your front delts, but not necessarily the best for achieving hypertrophy.

However, that's ok, because the following exercises in this post will help you see great results when combined with the handstand push up 

Your goal here is to hit 10-15 reps. If you are doing the freestanding handstand push up or wall push ups and they present a big challenge for you, aim for 5-10 reps instead 

I like to start with this exercise because it is easily the most challenging one on this list, and it's also one of the few exercises you can load your entire bodyweight on.

That means this exercise is great for you if you are more interested in calisthenics than weights 

Include this in every shoulder workout routine and I guarantee you will see results

This is a great push up variation for your front delts and your lower chest, but it is also a great exercise to build strength for the planche 

If you are already beast level and can do planche push ups with your whole body off the ground then do that, but I am not quite that good yet 

However, if you are a beginner then I'm sure you will find this variation of the push up to be plenty challenging, especially if you are only used to doing regular push ups 

Your goal with this exercise is to lean forward with straight arms and bring your hands as close to your waist line as possible

From here you want to roll your scapula's forward, keep your body straight, tuck your hips in, and flex your glutes 

Come all the way down until your chest touches the ground and come back up. 

On the way back up be sure to roll your scapula forward again, flexing your serratus muscles 

Be sure not to push back and to always keep your hands at your waste line 

Pro tip: You may find it helps you to plant your feet against the wall if you can't stay in one place 

Now, if you can't bring your hands as low as your waist line then just bring them as low as you can 

If you start including this exercise in your chest and shoulder workout routines then you will see a vast improvement in your pushing strength

At this point your shoulders should be really feeling it, and to finish off the front delt training we will be doing the shoulder press 

The cool thing about the shoulder press is that you will be doing the same movement as the handstand push up

The main differences is that you can control the weight, take the balance out of it, and really make this a shoulder-focused exercise, as opposed to a full body exercise 

You can really isolate the shoulder here, allowing you to really push that front delt to failure 

Focus on keeping your hands at roughly shoulder-width apart and your elbows tucked in at your sides, and start with the bar at your chest line 

From here you are going to push the bar up overhead until your arms are straight. 

Be sure not use your lower back to leverage that bar up, and focus completely on powering it up with your arms 

Control the weight on the way down and don't let it drop too quick 

I would push this exercise to failure, ideally with a weight that makes you fail in 10-15 reps 

At this point your front delts have been hit hard, and now it's time to hit your side and rear delts

This is a combination of a side delt and rear delt exercise, allowing us to target both in one move

This also allows us to use a little heavier weight on the side delt, which normally can only handle light weight safely 

What you are gonna do is pick a challenging weight and really power these dumbbells up in a motion that puts your shoulder into external rotation 

The start of the exercise is going to be mostly powered through a little momentum and the side delts, where the end of the exercise is going to be mostly taken over by the rear delts

This exercise should not be confused with the upright row, which is a terrible exercise that places your shoulder into internal rotation with weight, which is unsafe for you shoulder 

Be sure to really focus on getting that external rotation at the top of the exercise and this will probably become one of your favorite compound shoulder exercises

At this point we are going to isolate the side delt now that it's been pre-exhausted from those cheat lateral raises to help us hit hypertrophy 

The side delt is a small muscle and is often neglected, but is responsible for that wide-shoulder look 

There aren't too many calisthenics exercises that are great for hitting the side delt, at least not too many that I know about, and that's why we are going to resort to cables here 

You can also do this with resistance bands if you are training at home 

The goal with this exercise is to get a pre-stretch on that side delt right at the beginning of the exercise by having the cable pull your arm across your body 

You are going to use a light weight here of around 10-20lbs and focus on raising that cable with your side delt 

For most of the exercise your hand is going to be parallel to the ground, but right at the top you want to twist your hand back to prevent the cable from turning your arm into internal rotation 

Also be sure to get your arm nice and high so you can get a tight contraction on that side delt 

Do this for around 10 or so reps and you will really start to feel the burn in the side delt

This is my favorite rear delt exercise. Though this exercise does look a lot like an upper back trap exercise, but the difference here is the width of your arms 

If you keep your arms tight to your body this will turn into more of a back exercise, but if you keep your arms wider then this will become more of a rear delt exercise 

Don't get me wrong, your back will still be engaging when your arms are wide, but the focus is going to definitely shift to the rear delt 

I love this exercise because it helps you not only isolate the rear delt, but also lets you overload it with a decent amount of weight 

On top of that, you can even use some assistance from your legs to bang out a few more reps once your shoulders start getting tired, allowing you to achieve hypertrophy easier 

Just don't pull the bar too high, or again you will be putting your shoulders into internal rotation, which is a bad idea if you want healthy shoulders

If you do this exercise regularly it will become a staple for your shoulder workout routine

Now that your rear delts are on fire, we are going to finish this routine up with some lightweight exercise to get that last bit of juice out of your rear delts 

The face pull is a great exercise for correcting your posture, but also a great exercise to use on your pre-exhausted shoulders 

This exercise is not meant to be heavy, it's meant to give attention to the postural muscles that are often neglected like the rear delt, rotator cuff, and mid traps 

I prefer to do this by placing the cable high up on the machine and using two ropes so I can get the best range of motion 

Your gonna want to focus on leading this exercise with your hands, not your elbows

Aim to point your thumbs back behind you and then bring your arms together as opposed to letting the rope pull your arms down, because again, we want to avoid that internal rotation 

If you don't have access to two ropes then you can also do the same thing with rings, or by using a resistance band.

However I like the ropes the best if you have that option available to you 

Definitely include this exercise in not only this routine, but in every push and pull day that you do to strengthen those postural muscles that often get neglected

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