Boulder Shoulders
Some of the very best shoulders in pro bodybuilding are perched atop the clavicles
of rookie sensation Dennis Wolf from Germany, winner of the ’07 Keystone Pro Classic.
Certainly genetics have something to do with his dazzling deltoid development, but
there are also a few lessons to be learned from the Big Bad Wolf:
1) Stick with the basics. Wolf has been training for more than 10 years, but
his shoulder workout today is nearly identical to the one he was doing a decade ago.
While other bodybuilders may consider themselves so “advanced” that they include a
variety of machines and cables, Wolf still uses a barbell and dumbbells to get the job
done. Military presses, dumbbell laterals and bent-over laterals form the crux of his
routine now, as they did then. “The basics work so well that you would be foolish to
stop doing them,” he explains in his no-nonsense style. “I think a lot of guys stop making
progress—and assume they have reached their full potential—simply because they
abandon the most productive exercises.”
2) Train shoulders on their own day. “I trained chest and shoulders in the
same workout just once, and never again,” declares Wolf. He instinctively picked up
on something that many bodybuilders take years to figure out and some never tune
into. There’s simply no way you can do justice to presses for the chest and overhead
presses for the shoulders in the same training session. If you choose to ignore that,
your shoulders will never be trained with the energy and intensity they deserve, and
your gains will stop short of your true potential. Dennis not only trains shoulders on a
different day from when he trains chest but also separates the two bodyparts by four
days in the training week. That ensures full recovery and eliminates overlap between
the two muscle groups.
3) Prioritize rear delts. To a lot of bodybuilders, rear delts aren’t much more
than an afterthought. You see a whole lot of shoulders with good mass in the front and
some size to the side heads but not much of anything in the back. From the side it’s a
pretty incomplete look—as if you had something removed surgically back there. Wolf
noticed such a disparity but caught it in time to do something about it. “For a long time
I did rear delts first in my shoulder workout, so they were hit hard,” he says. They soon
caught up with his front and side heads, and today Wolf’s delts look full and thick from
every angle.
4) Hit traps on shoulder day. Bodybuilders often agonize over when to train
their traps—on shoulder day or with the back? Dennis Wolf doesn’t hesitate to give
what he feels is the definitive answer. “Traps should be trained with shoulders,” he
declares. “The back is too large and complex a muscle group to add anything else
to that workout. If you are already doing chins, deadlifts, pulldowns and rows, I don’t
see how you can possibly have energy left over to really stimulate the traps enough to
make them grow.”
Those are a few tips from a man who owns a pair of truly amazing shoulders. Apply
his methods and get yours growing too!
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