Looking to really showcase an impressive upper body physique? One element that you must not neglect is your shoulders. Or more specifically, your anterior delts. These muscles sometimes don’t get the attention they deserve because too many people are in the gym pumping out the lateral delt work.
It’s time for this to change so that you can really create that defined, powerful 3D look that you’re going for.
Here are a few things to note about anterior delt training.
Hit Them Hard With Compound Lifts
The first thing to know is that your anterior delts will be involved in many compound upper body lifts, so by hitting them hard with these exercises, you can see the growth that you desire.
While a regular bench press is great, an incline bench press is even better. The slight incline of the bench will place more total emphasis on the delt muscle, thus assisting you with strength progression.
Try Advanced Principles To Shock The Muscles
Next, when it comes to direct work for the anterior delts, advanced principles will be your best friend. The last thing you want is these muscles getting bored, so be sure to change things up regularly, shocking the muscles with a new challenge.
Drop sets, supersets, pyramid sets, as well as half reps will all work excellent to help carve out more muscle definition and get you through any training plateau you may experience.
Utilize Various Training Methodologies
Most people naturally gravitate to using dumbbells when training their delts in isolation. Don’t be afraid to branch away.
Why not try using the cables to do your front raises? This will keep constant tension on the muscle at all times, producing a greater stress load to overcome.
Or, you can even try this exercise using a barbell as well. Simply hold onto the barbell with both hands and then lift directly up in front of you.
You can even perform your front raises with a resistance band as well if desired, which will act similar to cable pulleys.
You don’t need to use all these training techniques in every workout, but it’s a great idea to alternate between them as time goes on.
Arm Yourself With Higher Frequency Training
Finally, to really get those anterior delts growing, up your frequency of training. Don’t just train them once or even twice a week. Try and hit them every other day that you go in to train. As front raises are not all that taxing on the CNS, you can easily add these to leg days, back days, and you should already be doing them on chest days since your anterior delts will already be stimulated on many chest exercises as noted.
As long as you are coming back feeling stronger each time you train them, you can rest assured the increased frequency is not hindering you, but working in your favor.
So all of this said, let’s show you a workout that’ll get those front delts screaming.
3D Delt Workout
Incline Chest Press – 4 sets of 5 reps
Dumbbell Shoulder Press – 3 sets of 8 reps
Barbell Front Raise – 3 sets of 10 reps
Dumbbell Front Raise (drop set) – 1 set of 15, 15, to failure reps
Upright Rows – 1 set to failure
Next time you’re heading into the gym, make sure that you aren’t overlooking this muscle group. It may not be as big as your chest or back, but it’s definitely one worth putting effort to as it can really make a large difference in your physique.
