help me please

[drew]

My goal is to increase the width of my shoulders. I plan on using handstand pushups. I think that as the months and years go by I will achive this goal with constant hard work.

So two days a week I train my lower body with mostly polymetric jumps and one set of one legged squats.

Here is my current upper body workout

handstand pusups
situps superset 3 sets max reps


pullups 3 sets max reps


pushups 3 sets max reps



Now a few questions.

I dont care about my chest but broadening my shoulders is a priority.
Should I be using dips to hit the side delt or are pushups working ok.

The pushups are of course higher rep volume.
I dont mind the pushups to hit other areas of my body but are just the handstand pushups ok?

[Sypherssj209]

I find that Hindu Pushups really isolate my shoulders quite a bit, along with V pushups, have your body in an upside down V formation, bending at your hips, keeping your legs straight, do pushups like this, it makes your shoulders work big time, its sort of like doing military presses with a barbell or 2 kettlebells, which work the front and middle deltoids.

I think handstand pushups would help isolate the rear deltoids, which in combination with the side delts gives you the size in your shoulders.

My I ask why you seek more size in the shoulders? is it just for the look or is there a practical reason for it?

[VingTsunMonkey]

I dont care about my chest but broadening my shoulders is a priority.

That's the kind of attitude that causes people to dump months of hard work into a pipe dream. Hopefully you're doing full body workouts and just stressing your shoulders a tad more: that's the real way to bring out a body part.

"your body is a tree, without a strong trunk, it will never have strong branches."

It's very proportional, your chest will only be as large as your back allows it to be, your shoulders only as large as any other part.

[drew]

Yeay I was geneticly ungifted and have a tiny bone structure. It is mostly for looks.

Lately though I have been feeling really strong in my shoulders. I can max at around 10 handstand pushups.

Would It be a wise Idea To mabey alternate with the pushups as the first exercise in my routine? That way my shoulders get a kind of back off day to help them recover from the intense work while my triceps are fresh.

Also I stretch my shoulder girdle very well often. Does it strengthen your overhead press if you do some rotator cuff strengthening moves?
I know it can help prevent injury but I figure my hour of stretching does that already.

If you read my workout routine you can see it is indeed a full body workout. Polymetric for legs keeps my lower body work fun and at the same time increases my verticle leap which is for function as well.

[jonp382]

Stretching is mostly useless. It doesn't prevent injury at all. Just warm-up with lighter weights and then use some heavier weights in the full range of movement. Stretching will only increase the ROM while stretching - it won't make you strong in that ROM. That's why people get weaker when they stretch before lifting in a lot of people - because their muscles are threads at the end of the ROM. Weights and resistance are far superior to developing a full ROM. Don't stretch beyond the normal ROM - that's asking for injury and problems, especially later on.

And yes, strengthening the rotator cuff will help your overhead press in limited amounts. It mostly prevents injury.

So instead of wasting that time of stretching, spend more of that time with your training or warming-up. :wink:

Also, how do you do your sit-ups? Legs flat or bent? Handstand push-ups hit all of your delts but especially your side delts.

[koltz]

streching wrongly can cause injury........ doing static streching for more then 15 secunds and a big strech builds up scar tissue actually ( pretty temporarily although it doesn't have the same strength as a muscle and can repture )
also dynamic streching reduces your strength by 15%~ for 90 minutes they say.
you should do very light streching and excersieses for the rom you intend to use in your workout and do dynamic static and isometric streches in the end of it which I think also helps recovery by loosening the muscle what oculd naturally take time...


Okey as for the shoulders, before writing this I knocked out some HSPUs...

hmm...
first of all I reccomend doing them on some (hard) books with a wide grip sicne doing the upper portion of the lift without the Pbars often works the triceps more so widening the grip and adding a place to go down to will help isolate them more

also the side head of your delts is a slow twitch dominant fiber , which means all sorts of techniques to increace your time under tention like dropsets partials or holds work fine and also stick to higher reps (I remember reading somewhere that type 2 fibers make up to an avrage 57% to the latheral delts in most people that's among 3 types of fibers)
...

what's more....... don't do hindu pushups , they suck waste your time on HSPUS instead or bent pushups...

but really unlike most people here who ignore shoulders even after saying them don't do it a few times you should give a lot of time more then chest and back work maybe together for the classic look

[kawana]

HSPU = high speed pushups?? If so i dont understand what the added benefit of doing them is, also what style of pushups would you do those for, like diamond, high incline or w/e. Or do you just do the hardest style you can, really fast lol? *confused*

[drew]

ya got me a little confused with your advise but I consider it above all others. I heard it was the top 3-4 inches of the overhead press that stressed the side delts more.

I never did hindu pushups. I do regular pushups.

are you thinking to workout the chest and back like with a superset or....


HSPU are handstand pushups \\ my delt to delt width is 17 inches
the average male is 18.54 inches :(

[kawana]

ah ok ty for the deffinition, feel kinda silly now :) Arg i cant even do one lol, tried today and got up like 1/2 an inch then i fell :P

[1rickloyd1]

HSPU are you starting from the top position or bottome. The momentum helps of you start from top position.

[koltz]

HSPU = hand stand push ups

nearly everyone who trains in BW only should be doing them , the onle exue is either using weights , a harder non handstand variant like one arm bent pushup dips , or not being able to strength-wise (what I fidn ironic is that many people ask me about BW sicne they think it takes more agility and athlethism to do instead of being a bulky and slow bodybuidler or whatever they think , but they creep out of learning to kick into a handstand agienst the wall , which is easier to learn then doing so so favoirte among bodybuilders , barbell squat right)

[drew]

In your perfect upper body routine you suggest dips. Do you think that this neglects the pectoral muscles. vs pushups. I think if you lean forward it involves the pecs more. I was planning on using it and I personally dont care about a chest, but from the point of total development. I dont like doing pushupus andyway

[koltz]

Dips are awesome for pectoral development , I do dips daily near the place I sit now ( between two chairs ) and my pecs are one of my best parts I don't do pushups or benching ( at this point )

Also handstand pushups work the upper head of the pecs although it seems as dips also hit it a bit...

although many people say it's a triceps move my triceps doesn't work much if at all during them or any normal press actually

if you really don't want to do them for some reasons ( they may hurt some peoples shoulders , although safer then the bench \ pushups for most)
you can do an alternative by doing a light inclined one legged wide grip pushups on pushup handles side to side , This has about the same ressistance as dips , I think