[aphil]

Hey guys,

I have a question about my shoulders. I have progressed well with almost every area of my body (progressed to higher weights as I become stronger on a regular basis) except for my shoulders.

Now-here is my thing. Since I am a Middle Eastern dancer-I think this has something to do with it. In Middle Eastern dance most of the time your arms are engaged and away from your body-your arms are never hanging directly at your sides-they are usually above your head, or reaching out, or somehow framing your body-and it really works the shoulders. When we do veilwork there is a lot of shoulder work as well.

So...I have noticed that my shoulders have not progressed in weights for a while. I am still really feeling it during the sets of various shoulder exercises that I do-and pushing through the last few reps-but I just have not "went up" in weights for a while.

I am sure that my dancing and the shoulder use there has something to do with it...as far as how they look-my shoulders look pretty good. They are getting a nice shape to them.

Do you think I am okay at lower weights for shoulders since I engage them so much dancing...or if I need to address it...is there anything that can help?

Any opinions appreciated!

[Mel]

Here's my opinion based on my personal experience and my clients'. Shoulders are made up of teeeeny-tiny muscles relative to all the other muscles in your body. The amount a growth that you (as a testoterone-deficient woman) are going to see there is not huge...nothing like the amount of muscle growth and strength increases that you will see in your legs or back. It's taken me almost 4 years to go from doing lateral raises with 8 pound dumbbells to doing them with 17.5 pound dumbbells. It took me 2 months to double the amount of weight I could squat. At a certain point with any exercise you have to start thinking about whether increasing the weight is going to be detrimental to your joint. Shoulders and knees are the most vulnerable. Working rear delts, laterals and fronts are not much of an issue on that account, but overhead presses (particularly military presses and behind-the-neck presses) do raise issues. You'll know when you get there. I've reached a weight on overhead presses where I suspect my muscles might be able to lift maybe a pound or two more, but the joint feels like it's on the verge of instability. So that's it for increasing weight- muscle fatigue is great, joint failure is NOT!

If you aren't at that point, I'd keep working at it: try some new exercises and variations to see if that can help you over the plateau. If you have access to plate mates so that you can add small increments of weight to your dumbbells, that might help. It could be that the increment that you are attempting is just too big. Remember, those are tiny muscles and they burn when worked. Or play around with lowering your reps- I usually do shoulders in sets of 10.

What exercises to you usually do? Maybe I can give you some new ideas....

Mel

[aphil]

I HAVE noticed that military press are the most uncomfortable for me!!! I can lift much more comfortably and higher weights doing laterals, fronts, etc. than I can military presses. Even with 5 and 8 pound weights military presses can become uncomfortable at the end of the sets-but I can go higher for laterals, etc.

I have thought of it maybe being my bones and/or joints before...because I am average-tall (5'7") but am small boned-small shoulder width, small wrists, hands, etc. I usually wear gloves/wrist support when I do weights so I do not feel strain in my wrists so much. Could being smaller boned mean that I am just not going to be able to take that much weight in my shoulder area?

My weights all have a couple pounds in between them...5, 8, 10, 12, 15, etc. and I DO think it would be more comfortable for me to progress in a smaller 1 pound increment there rather than 2-3 pound jumps.

I definitely do not want an injury...are there certain recommendations of shoulder exercises that would give me a well rounded workout for that area...while keeping military presses to a minimum. On workouts that include them-should I maybe just lift lighter weights on that exercise alone?

Thanks for your help...I really appreciate it!

I do all sorts of shoulder exercises. (not in the same workout) I try to jumble the exercises around so I am not doing the exact same routine each time. For biceps I may do concentration curls and wide angle curls one workout...and then regular bicep curls and hammer curls the next, and so on.