shoulder-workout

3 Week Shoulder Workout Routine for Mass

If you are an advanced lifter and you want to improve or shock a body part (or in our case the shoulders) you should try this intense shoulder workout routine. The system is called – Power/Rep Range/Shock or shortly P/RR/S. The workout represents a three-week phase that is performed three times over the course of nine weeks.

This shoulder workout routine aims to improve a weak body part (your shoulders) or, if you can handle it, you can train your entire body with it. P/RR/S prevents from getting bored doing the usual workout routine.

But first, we need to warn you: If you just started training or training less than a year, you’re not ready for a program of this intensity. Meaning, you must have a basic understanding of how the muscle groups work, you need to have some good strength developed, and a good mind-muscle connection with the muscles being trained. If you are not advanced, you should be better off with some of these shoulder workouts.

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The 3 week shoulder workout routine

Week 1: Power Phase

The main intensity section comes from “power week” that is set for three sets of four to six reps with four to five minutes’ rest between sets. The delts consists of three sections, heads — anterior, or front; lateral, or side; and posterior, or rear — so you perform one exercise for each head.

Front Delts

Seated barbell presses    3 x 4-6

Side Delts

Lateral raises    3 x 4-6

Rear Delts

Upright barbell rows        3 x 4-6

You need to hit the aimed muscles hard to the point of failure within the four-to-six-rep range, but don’t go extremely heavy. You shouldn’t sacrifice form in favor of doing more reps. You’re trying to build muscle, so don’t aim to reach max weight.

Week 2: Rep Range Phase

After grueling Power Week comes Rep Range week. Follow the same principles as described for Power week, but the rep range is different for each exercise. First exercise for sets of eight to nine reps, the second exercise for 10 to 12 reps and the third exercise for 13 to 15 reps. Your rest between sets is two and three minutes.

You can switch up the order in which you train the heads. You start with the side heads then hit the rear and, finally, the front.

Side Delts

Seated lateral raises    3 x 9

Rear Delts

Bent-over dumbbell or cable laterals    3 x 10-12

Front Delts

Seated dumbbell/barbell presses    3 x 13-15

Make sure you squeeze at the top of each movement in order to perform a proper contraction of the muscles.

Week 3: Shock Phase

Shock week includes high intensity-boosting techniques that aim to challenge the muscles, so when they recover, they will grow and become stronger. The techniques can include supersets, drop sets, partial reps or rest/pause method. For the sake of simplicity we’ll go with the drop set technique.

With drop sets you do a set with a heavy weight and when you get to failure you drop the weight by about 25% and continue to do more repetitions till you get to failure again. Take two minute breaks after each drop set.

Once again you can change the order in which you train the deltoid heads — start with the rear, followed by the front and, finally, the side delts.

Rear Delts

Bent-over lateral raises
warm-up    2 x 15-20
Drop Set*   1 x 8-10(4), 8(4), 8(4)

Front Delts

Smith-machine or hammer presses

warm-up    1 x 15-20
Drop Set*    1 x 8-10(3), 8(3), 8(3)

Side heads

One-arm cable laterals
warm-up    1 x 15-20
Drop Set*     1 x 8-10(3), 8(3), 8(3)

Drop Set* is a drop set, and you will execute it as follows:

– You should analyze carefully and pick a weight with which you will reach failure at 8 to 10 reps and do a set;
– rest five seconds,
– Drop the weight by 25% and then go to failure again.
– Rest for 10 seconds
– Then reduce the weight by 25% again and go to failure again ;

After Week 3

You can start all over again the processes with Power week again, followed by Rep Range week and Shock week. Then repeat the overall three-week cycle one last time for nine weeks total. After three rounds of P/RR/S  take a week off to recover and prepare for the next nine-week phase — if you feel up to it.


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