Everyone knows about the bar-room muscles. These are the muscle groups trained by the bar-room bodybuilders, the phonies who only enter the gym with the purpose of acquiring big arms and chests. They don’t worry about training back, legs, shoulders, or anything else. They just want to look big in their TapOut shirts to impress someone from the fairer gender in the gym. These muscles are perceived by desirable by society, but they are fairly common among people you see who train even just a small amount.

Then there are shoulders. You can’t fake shoulders. You can’t pump up in the men’s room stall and come out, puffed up on the dance floor, and suddenly have big shoulders. Rather, shoulders are a unique muscle group in that they sit relaxed all the time. In order to have that appearance of possessing big shoulders, you have to actually possess big shoulders. And that is one way to tell the real bodybuilders from the bar-room bodybuilders. Real bodybuilders have a pair of thick shoulders, and they are obvious in any angle, with or without a shirt on.

Building great shoulders isn’t an easy task. Here are a few of the factors which come into play. You must work hard to ensure you’re satisfying each of these needs.

Training

Heavy compound training – for 45 to 60 minutes per week – is one key to building up large deltoids. The region needs to be saturated with blood for growth to occur, but it first needs to be targeted with very heavy weight training to stimulate the muscle fibers to even be open to utilizing the nutrients delivered by this blood. Train hard, heavy, and don’t run out of the gym after 30 minutes.

Diet

In order to make the shoulders grow, you’re going to need to gain some weight. You’ll never develop cannonball deltoids (if you don’t have them now) by keeping your bodyweight constant. A nice clean bulk may just be in the cards for you.

Rest

Once you have the training and diet in order, you must provide your body a chance to grow. Sleep at least 7 hours per night, with 8 being preferable. Take 45 to 60 minutes each day to just relax and recover.

Consistency

Some muscle groups, such as legs, tend to grow whenever we hit them. After all, they are a very large muscle group. Shoulders, on the other hand, are not. They need steady training over a period of months to see any meaningful progress.

Steroids

This is a factor which may not be accepted by all bodybuilders – and that is perfectly acceptable. The fact of the matter is that most bodybuilders possess average shoulders until they decide to use anabolic steroids. When they make that jump, they are able to significantly improve their physiques (and shoulders in particular) with very little change in their other factors. The deltoids possess a high concentration of muscle cell receptors, just like the thighs. Whenever you see a bodybuilder with bulging delts and quads, it’s safe to say he’s no longer natural. This point isn’t being made to convince you to enter the world of steroids – only to illustrate the reality that they do play a major part in the shoulder success of most bodybuilders.

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