5 Effective Tips for Strengthening Your Shoulders

By Coach Keller

Strong and healthy shoulders are vital for maintaining overall fitness and function in daily life. Loading your bike onto the car rack? Grabbing a can of paint from a shelf in your garage? Handing a snack to your kid in the back seat? Our shoulders move in a variety of planes and under different loads every day. 

Unfortunately, with the majority of our modern lifestyle being typing at a computer, sitting in our car, or even hunched over our handlebars, our shoulders do not express their full range of motion as frequently as they should. The less we move our shoulders into their natural positions and under load, the less happy they will be moving into these mandatory positions as we age. 

You don’t need to be a professional athlete to want to improve shoulder strength. Just being able to pick-up a box or carry groceries is enough to need healthy shoulders! In order to maintain or improve shoulder health, we must prioritize strengthening exercises, mobility and flexibility work, proper posture, and rest and repair. Today we are going to explore specific exercises that build shoulder health, and movements to prioritize in your fitness routine. 

The 5 Best Ways to Strengthen Your Shoulders:

1. Overhead Exercises:

Whenever we can add weight (or “load”) overhead, the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in our shoulders work to stabilize the weight so it does not fall. This builds better mobility and stability in our shoulders. Overhead exercises not only target the primary shoulder muscles but also engage the stabilizing muscles around the shoulder joint, including the rotator cuff muscles and the muscles of the scapula (shoulder blade). 

Try: Single-arm overhead dumbbell or kettlebell carry; overhead squat; strict and push presses; dumbbell or barbell snatch; ball slams; wall balls. 

2. Deltoid Strengthening Movements:

The deltoids are a group of large, triangular muscles in the shoulder that help move the upper arm and stabilize the shoulder joint. They are made up of three parts: anterior, middle, and posterior. The deltoids are attached to the collarbone, shoulder blade, and upper arm bone.  Front raises and overhead presses help strengthen the anterior deltoids. Lateral movements help target the medial and posterior deltoids, traps, and lats, and enhance shoulder stability. They also build rotator cuff strength and improve shoulder range of motion.

Try: Front and side raises with dumbells or small plates; reverse flys; I-Y-T’s; bench press; shoulder press. 

3. Trap Strengthening Movements:

The trapezius muscles are responsible for moving and tilting the head, shrugging the shoulders, bending the back, lifting the arms, and rotating the neck. So yeah, kind of important. Many movements in the gym load the traps, and they are often working without you evening knowing it like during deadlifts and bent-over rows.

Try: Shoulder shrugs with dumbbells or barbell; farmers carry; kettlebell swings; high-pulls; upright rows.   

4. External Rotations:

External rotations help strengthen the infraspinatus (the muscle across the shoulder blade) and rotator cuff muscles, and these movements also enhance shoulder joint stability and posture. External rotations occur when you bring your elbows forward and/or back, like we do in the front rack or pressing position or bench press. We also externally rotate our shoulder when we throw a ball, swing a tennis or pickleball racket, swim freestyle stroke, or swing a gold club.

Try: banded rows; banded external rotation; seated dumbbell press; face pulls; band pull-aparts; seated Cuban rotations.

5. Mindfulness: 

Do you ever catch yourself slouching over your desk or rolling your shoulders forward in a pushup? Believe it or not, just being aware of our body will actually improve the way we move it! Mindfulness (in the sense of connecting with your breath and body in the present moment) will also help improve your posture! The more we can check in with the way we are sitting, standing, and moving, the more we can adjust and correct until it becomes habit. Like right now… can you roll your shoulders down and back? Can you take a deep breath into your belly? Happy shoulders starts by first recognizing when they are unhappy.

Try: Stand up tall and equally weight both feet, with shoulders relaxed and back; create posture-reminder notifications on your phone throughout the day; warm up your shoulders with bands before a workout; always practice the best possible form with every lift and exercise; rest and relax your shoulders when they are overworked.

Overall, there are endless ways to strengthen and mobilize your shoulders. Healthy shoulders take a lot of work and commitment to proper form, good posture, and body awareness. At Evergreen we add all of these movements into our programming to help keep your shoulders healthy and happy! Not only will your posture and body mechanics improve, but you will also be able to lift your groceries, push strollers, and grab that box of Christmas decorations from the attic without pulling something.

PLUS: Sun’s out, guns out. Let’s go. 💪