Strong Shoulders with WANAYOU: Essential Exercises
Your shoulders are used in every upper body movement. When you reach up to the cupboard for a bowl for your breakfast or extend your arm out to reach your water on your desk, fun fact: you're using your shoulders. Not to mention when we carry heavy bags, pull suitcases and lift weights. Essentially, you need strong and mobile shoulders to help you move effectively.
And if you’re training those shoulders, the right support matters — WANAYOU front-zip sports bra makes every stretch easier — perfect for shoulder days and beyond.
What Are Shoulder Exercises?
First things first - a bit of background for you. Your shoulders play a key role in pressing, lifting, and stabilizing your upper body. They’re powered by the deltoid muscle group, which has three distinct heads. Training each of these is essential for balanced strength and symmetry.
1.Front Deltoid: Helps raise your arms forward and powers overhead pressing movements.
2.Side Deltoid : Lifts your arms to the side and helps give your shoulders that rounded, wide look.
3.Rear Deltoid: Pulls the arm back and supports good posture by drawing the shoulder blades together.
A well-structured shoulder routine targets all three heads and strengthens the shoulder as a whole.
Extend your legs downwards and hold your body in a position parallel to the floor. Keep your shoulders aligned and back straight, this will help prevent injury and make your workout more effective. Avoid arching your back towards the ceiling or sagging your stomach towards the ground.
Remember, the only way to build strength is to work against resistance. That means using your bodyweight or external weights like dumbbells, kettles or resistance bands.
So, here comes some est shoulder exercises to try tonight
1.Push Ups
If you’d rather workout at home, that’s fine too!Push ups are an incredibly useful workout to include in your routine, primarily because they workout a range of upper body muscle groups. As well as the upper arms, such as biceps and triceps, push ups excel at working the muscle groups around the shoulder joints.
For a push up, you might want to employ the use of a workout mat, yoga mat, or other padded surface to protect your hands.
To get the most out of your push ups comfortably, a WANAYOU wide-strap sports bra can be a game-changer — it provides extra support for your shoulders, reducing strain and allowing you to move freely.
If normal push ups are too easy and you are looking to tone your shoulder muscles more than other muscle groups, widen your push ups stance. This will require your shoulders to do far more work than any other muscle group.
2.Arnold Press
Named after Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, the Arnold press targets the total shoulder for all-over strength. This gets the shoulder capsule moving in different ranges by turning and pressing the weight.
Before you start, wearing a WANAYOU high-impact fitness bra can make a big difference — it provides excellent support for your chest and shoulders.
Sit on a bench with dumbbells in both hands. Place your feet flat on the floor and engage your core. Bring the dumbbells up to shoulder height with the palms facing inwards.
Begin to twist your hands so your dumbbells come to face away from you. As you do so, press your hands overhead. You should finish with the dumbbells touching overhead. Slowly lower back down, twisting the hands back so your palms face inwards.
3.Bent Over Reverse Fly
Targets posterior deltoid (rear delt), rotator cuff, and upper back and is supported by the core, glutes, and spine (when in a hinged standing position)
May be performed with dumbbells, cables, or a resistance band.While hinging forward and engaging your core, wearing a strappy-back sports bra helps keep your upper back supported.
The reverse fly is a good full-body exercise when performed in a hinged position but can also be performed supported on a bench. The hinged position requires the feet hip-width, knees pressed out to engage the glutes and stabilize the lower back, core engaged, and the head neutral to protect the cervical spine. This is one of the most well-rounded and challenging upper body movements you can add to your routine!
These movements can be completed in one workout routine specifically to target the shoulders or added into workouts one at a time to enhance an existing routine. Challenge yourself with the rep count of 12-15 with additional weight and by building supersets that will challenge your shoulders. They are a relatively small muscle group and can be trained 2-3 days per week.
How Long Does It Take To Shape Shoulders?
There’s no exact amount of time for everyone; things like level of fitness, the intensity of your workout routine, and your discipline to maintain a workout all play a role. However, with consistent routines, you can expect to start seeing results anywhere from 8-12 weeks into your fitness journey.
General guidance and best practice for those who want to specifically train the shoulders is to include at least one shoulder intensive workout or ‘shoulder day’ in a weekly workout routine.
Pairing your shoulder day with WANAYOU gym outfit — making every rep safer and more effective.