When it comes to working out, not many of us obsess about our shoulders. After all, most people are worried about toning their abs, arms or legs, and this leaves little time for shoulder muscles. But this certainly isn’t a green light to neglect your shoulders because they’re quite important to your overall appearance.
Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at some good shoulder exercises for toning and/or bulking up your muscles.
Let’s Start!
Deltoid Press
This shoulder exercise is great for beginners since it allows you to gradually increase the amount of weight you use.
- To begin, stand with your feet under your hips with a pair of dumbbells at your sides. You can use soup cans, water bottles, toys, or whatever else is available.
- Keep your elbows bent slightly, and raise the weights so that your arms form a straight line in front of your shoulders.
- Lower the weights to your sides again, and raise the weights up again; only this time, bring them up so that they are out to your sides at shoulder height.
- Repeat this pattern to perform the deltoid press.
Arm Circles
Possibly the easiest shoulder exercise to tone muscles you will perform when working out is arm circles.
- Start by standing with your arms raised out by your sides.
- Now that your arms are parallel to the floor, start making circles with your arms slowly; continue to do the circles for 10-15 seconds before reversing the direction you were moving your arms.
These are excellent for beginners because they don’t require any weights at all, but can be modified for advanced workouts by adding light resistance. Other muscles worked by arm circles are your traps, which are located on each side of the spine on your shoulder blades.
