Nzọụkwụ isii na oke Delta

If you’re wondering why your shoulders aren’t growing, chances are they just can’t hear you. Raise your load with this workout!

Banyere chepụtara: Bill Geiger kwuru

Many will recommend that you throw all your energy into the lagging muscle groups. A kind of classic “cut your trousers to the knees to show the world your calves.” Don’t say anything like that to Tom Graff. The up-and-coming NPC Physicist athlete will immediately respond that his shoulders are his trump card, but he continues to train them as intensely as if they were the worst in the world.

And you can’t argue with his argumentation. He emphasizes that hypertrophied deltas contribute to better development of the muscles of the trunk and improve the drawing of the relief of the arms. In short, the shoulders are more important to upper body shape and definition than any other muscle group.

Graff uses a unique high volume approach with high training frequency that will benefit anyone looking to add width and definition to their delts, not just competitive athletes preparing to take to the stage.

Here are the principles that Graff believes are particularly effective for training shoulders, and an exercise program to put those principles into practice.

1. Train your deltas more often

Graff’s training split is designed to work out deltas not once, but twice in 7 days. “Even so, there are not too many growth incentives,” he says. “The increased emphasis is helping deltas grow like never before.”

In addition to special training, individual bundles of deltoid muscles are worked out on the days of other muscle groups. The back head is actively involved in the deadlift on the day of the back, the front head is recruited in the chest press, especially in the press with the head tilted up. For Graff, this is not a problem, and he even trains his chest, shoulders and back for three days in a row without rest.

“The results speak for themselves,” he says, challenging the postulate that the muscle group should rest 48 hours before the next workout. “Of course, you cannot ignore the factors of recovery, so pay particular attention to frequent meals of a balanced, high-protein meal and good rest.”

2. For heavy presses, use machines, not free weights.

It might seem like it goes against all the rules of designing a training program, but Graff believes that the biggest drawback of free weights is that the need to balance the projectile leads to a decrease in tonnage. For him, the main thing is to lift the maximum weight that allows you to work in the intended range of repetitions.

“On the bench, I prefer machines because I can use more weight,” he says. “Since I don’t need to spend energy balancing the barbell, my task is simplified: I just need to squeeze out the maximum weight possible, and I don’t need to direct it.”

3. Maintain a high volume throughout the workout.

What really catches your eye about Tom Graff’s shoulder workout is the amount of load; even his heavy sets consist of 12 reps. Although sports academics agree that the ideal range for hypertrophy is 8-12 reps, Graff prefers to stay at the upper limit.

“I usually try to do 12-15 reps,” he says. – I tried to do less than twelve, but often when I limited myself to 8 repetitions in the approach, there was a feeling that this was not enough. I’d rather sacrifice tonnage, but do more reps. This increases blood flow to the muscles, helps to achieve better pumping, and the muscles hurt more the next day. “

4. Look in the mirror to measure effectiveness.

Think the mirrors in the gym are just for posing or admiring yourself? Not at all. For Tom Graff, this is another functional tool that proves that the training style he chooses is really effective.

“I can see muscle striations directly in training, and they tell me the exercise is working,” he says. – If the striation increases with each approach, this is a sure sign that the exercise is doing its job. For example, this is how I make sure that raising the arms in front of me or to the sides, not to the level of the shoulders, but above the head, is effective, and forces the muscle to plow in an extended range of motion. “

5. With a high volume of workload, do fewer failures.

High volume training with high frequency forces Tom Graff to take a small step back. “Most of the sets I finish on the verge of muscle failure, and only in the last one I give my best, doing either a little more or a little fewer reps than planned,” he says. “If almost every approach is pounded to failure, the secretion of cortisol, which is a catabolic hormone, can increase.”

6. In addition, work out the weak points

The deltoids are arguably Tom Graff’s best muscle group, but he admits that this is not the case for each deltoid head in isolation. His front deltas are overdeveloped, which, in his opinion, is due to their active participation in chest workouts.

“The back deltas are my weak link, so I can add another exercise for them or increase the volume of the load,” he says. “And since the more massive the shoulders, the brighter the illusion that you are a tough bodybuilder, on the day of shoulder training, I pay special attention to medium beams.”

Tom Graff Shoulder Workout

Tom Graff starts his delt workout with light warm-up sets and performs inward and outward rotations for the shoulders, ligaments and muscles. Rest 60-90 seconds between sets. Use a working weight with which you are struggling to get to the target number of repetitions. Warm-up sets are not included in the exercise program.

Tom Graff Shoulder Workout

Technique Tips from Tom Graff

Seated press in the machine. “I sit not with my back, but facing the simulator. This allows me to take a deeper position and forces my hands to go further behind my head. Thus, the emphasis shifts to the back and middle deltas, and the load on the front beam, which is already strong for me, is reduced. “

Chin pull. “I raise my elbows as high as possible. Quite often, people begin to reduce their range of motion with each repetition. I find that full-amplitude repetitions help me develop the upper traps as well. I really like to pull my elbows very high because it really makes me feel the traps work. To be honest, this is almost the only upper trapezius exercise in my training program. I prefer to take the neck narrower, because the front deltas are slightly more loaded in this case than with a wide stance of the arms. “

Lifting dumbbells in front of you on an incline bench. “I achieved a much more pronounced front head drawing when I started doing this exercise on an incline bench and started raising my arms above my head, increasing the range of motion. Often I see in the mirror how the striation increases, and the muscles become more prominent with the expansion of the range of motion. I consider this to be my key exercise for the front deltas. “

Raising hands with dumbbells to the sides while standing. “I strive to ensure that my shoulders are not just visually larger; I want to increase the volume of the deltas both in width and in depth, because this emphasizes the muscular relief of the upper arm. In this exercise, I raise my arms to about shoulder height. As an alternative, I can do a variant for the middle deltas, in which I lean on my side on an incline bench and raise the dumbbell over my head, performing a movement with full amplitude. “

Abducting dumbbells to the side of the bar. “These are two exercises for the price of one, because both the core and the back deltas work. In fact, you first need to stabilize the body in the bar on one arm, and then lift the dumbbell to the side. I start with a neutral grip, and when I raise my hand high, I turn my hand so that my thumb is pointing down. I feel like the back deltas contract more strongly this way than if my arm remains in a neutral position for the entire rep. “

“Graff-hic” of change

Tom Graff is getting results from this workout, but don’t think this is the last workout program in his – or your – athletic life. “Like most bodybuilders, I think training programs need a change,” he says. – I like to add variety by changing exercises to prevent deltas from adapting to a specific movement pattern. I do some exercises in almost every workout, and I change the rest relatively often. “

In the off-season, when the task is to increase the volume, he makes additional sacrifices for the sake of muscle growth. “For starters, I don’t do cardio at all. I slow down the pace of my workouts and keep my heart rate below 120, he says. – I also force myself to eat, even when I don’t feel like it, which is even more difficult when you adhere to the rules of “pure” mass collection. I have to prepare food in advance, and I devote about 2 hours to this every Sunday. There are so many food supplies for the week that they barely fit in the refrigerator. “

Do you want to build big shoulders? This is the attitude required for this. Focus your efforts on muscle growth, and you will definitely get the result!

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