Cable-built shoulders: body shop this all-cable workout will help pack on the meat while keeping your shoulder joints intact

The English language is riddled with references to shoulders. Chicago is the city of broad shoulders. You look over your shoulder for trouble. Roads have shoulders. Even shampoos get named in their honor. We use them for burdens and to cry on. And if you forget your anniversary, you'll get a cold one.

It's no wonder shoulders get such recognition. Versatile, reliable, they are the Chevy pickups of the human body. Aside from keeping your coat on, they link your arms to your torso and allow your limbs to do everything from picking an apple off a tree to picking your kid up from his crib. Well-developed delts add upper-body width to give you a broad, V-tapered look. Perhaps most importantly, your shoulders are critical for developing other areas of your frame, because they are recruited in movements meant for other body parts.

So you'll do well to pay close attention to your shoulder routine, which should work the anterior (front), medial (middle) and posterior (rear) deltoid muscles, as well as the rotator cuff muscles located deeper in the shoulder structure, says certified strength-and-conditioning specialist Randy L. Leopando, an American Council on Exercise-certified personal trainer and the director for NutriFormance Fitness, Therapy and Performance in. St. Louis.

The following workout relies on cable shoulder exercises, which allow you to maintain continuous tension on whichever deltoid head you're focusing. As well, they minimize ballistic impact on your shoulder capsules, which ensures continued growth without injury to the delicate soft tissues.

"Hitting the shoulder from different angles will help develop and strengthen its entire musculature," says Leopando. "Each muscle is responsible for moving the arm and shoulder to a certain position, so it would only make sense to involve different angles in your routine. Also, the upper arm is capable of moving in up to 10 positions."

By focusing on all parts of your shoulders instead of just your mirror muscles, you'll not only create defined delts, you'll also avoid a muscle imbalance that could lead to shoulder injuries, especially if you engage in repetitive overhead movements (such as those required in tennis, volleyball and swimming). "You must make sure that the posterior shoulder muscles, as well as the rest of the back muscles, keep up with the muscles in the front to prevent any injury," says Leopando.

And don't neglect the rotator cuff muscles (subscapularis, supraspinatus, infraspinatus and teres minor). "These are very important in upper-arm movement, mechanics and joint stabilization," Leopando says. "The primary duty of the rotator cuff muscles is to keep the head of the humerus [the long bone of the upper arm] stabilized in the glenoid cavity of the scapula [the shoulder blade]. Simply put, they help keep the ball in the socket."

CHANGE LEADS TO GROWTH

Although there's no simple formula for developing shoulders, you must avoid redundancy. Says Leopando: "The main key to shoulder development [as well as development for other parts of the body] is to change your routine every four to six weeks. The body adapts to a certain stimulus [in that time], so you have to change the routine in order to elicit any sort of change in your physique."

With that in mind, Leopando has developed a unique cables-only workout that targets the entire shoulder. "An all-cable routine can provide a different stimulus to the shoulders than what you are accustomed to," he explains. While lifting free weights recruits stabilizing muscles not used in cable and machine exercises, the level of tension during a free-weight movement may vary. "Cables usually provide tension on the muscle throughout the movement, depending on how you angle the cable."

The workout is split into two days, with at least two days' rest in between. Day One focuses on injury prevention and rotator cuff strengthening; Day Two keys into muscular development. Because the shoulder is involved in many upper-body movements, avoid heavy back or chest workouts the day after a shoulder regimen.

Don't try to be a he-man by piling on the weight with side raises, forcing you to swing your body to bring up the weight, risking injury. "If you reduce the weight and use strict form, resistance will be more evenly distributed across the muscle you're working, and therefore will keep the tension across the muscle more constant," advises Leopando. While performing side- or front-delt raises, make sure you slightly retract your shoulder blades. This will help prevent overuse of the upper trapezius throughout the movement.

THE EXERCISES

Note: For the first three exercises, use a height-adjustable cable pulley with a horseshoe attachment. If an adjustable pulley isn't available, use exercise bands and perform the movement in the same manner.

DAY 1

1. EXTERNAL ROTATION (INFRASPINATUS AND TERES MINOR) Adjust the pulley to about waist height. Stand two or three feet away, with your working arm furthest from the pulley. Your feet should be shoulder-width apart, your knees slightly bent. Grasp the handle and flex your elbow 90 degrees (1a). Keeping your elbow in at your side, rotate your forearm outward with your fist pointing away from the pulley (1b). Return to the starting position, keeping the elbow at 90 degrees.