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Shoulder Workouts
The shoulder is used in almost every movement of the upper body and shoulder workouts are a major area of concentration for most bodybuilders. The shoulder has so many muscles that it is also one of the most injured parts of the body. Because of the wide range of mobility involved in the joint, shoulder pain can be very hard to evaluate or treat.
Many bodybuilders concentrate on shoulder workouts to the point that the muscles in the shoulders are overworked. Many muscles do not need specific shoulder workouts because they are worked in most chest exercises. This applies particularly to the anterior head of the deltoid, the muscle at the front of the shoulder. No specific exercises need to be done yet many people do dumbbell raises as part of their shoulder workouts.
The main shoulder muscle is the deltoid and it has three different parts--the anterior head (front of shoulder), the medial head (side) and the posterior head (rear of the shoulder). Most shoulder workouts involve lifting dumbbells, barbells, or doing machine workouts.
One of the most common shoulder workouts you see at the gym is the seated military press, also called a seated shoulder press. The exercise begins by being seated on a shoulder bench press or upright bench. The barbell should be held so that your grip is slightly wider than your shoulders. Then lift the barbell up over your head until you have your arms completely extended upward. Lower the barbell slowly back to its original position. You can lower the barbell to either the front or back of your head. Some people are more comfortable with one side of the body than the other.
The side of the deltoid can be worked by shoulder exercises that are called side lateral raises. These are also often seen in gym routines and are quite easy to do. Just stand with your legs apart, shoulder-width and arms at the sides with a dumbbell in each hand. Your palms should face your body. Then slightly bend your elbows and lift the weights until you have them just above shoulder level. Then lower them slowly back to your side. Repeat this several times. The number of reps will be determined by your physical condition and training routine.
Introduction to the Shoulder
Most people who do strength training have a number of shoulder workouts in their lifting routines. In order to better understand what shoulder workouts are advantageous and which are not, it is necessary to understand a little about the anatomy of the shoulder. It is considered a ball and socket joint.
The shoulder consists of three bones which are all attached by various muscles, tendons, and ligaments. You can start to understand the complexity of this joint when you realize that there are twenty different muscles involved in shoulder movement. The three bones are the humerus, which is the upper arm bone, the scapula, otherwise known as the shoulder blade, and the clavicle or collarbone.
The very top of the humerus bone looks like a ball and it is positioned in a socket that is made by the end of the shoulder blade. These also have specific names. The ball is called the head of the humerus and the socket is named the glenoid fossa. Together they form the glemnohumeral joint. The socket, or glenoid fossa has a band of tissue surrounding it known as the glenoid labrum.
So that bone does not scrape bone, the humeral head and the glenoid fossa are covered with softer material called articular cartilage. Every time you move your arm the anticular cartilage allows the shoulder bones to slide over one another. The shoulder has two other joints that work similarly to the glenohumeral joint. These have very long names, the sternoclavicular joint and the acromioclavicular joint. Ligaments surrounding these joints provide stabilization points for shoulder movements.
No explanation of how the shoulder works would be complete without talking about the rotator cuff, since it is so often involved in any shoulder problems you might develop. Around the glenohumeral joint are four muscles which attach to the scapular. These are the subscapularis, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and teres minor. They become tendons when they attach themselves to the humerus. These tendons are what form the rotator cuff.
The rotator cuff is the group of muscles most often injured by baseball pitchers who throw very hard. They stabilize the shoulder joint when it is in a motion such as throwing.
The biceps, a muscle located on the front of the upper part of the arm, also has two tendons which attach themselves up above the glenoid fossa, thus providing even more stability. Steadying the scapular is also the job of the rhomboid muscles as well as the serratus anterior and trapezius muscles. (continued...)