Deltoid Destruction: High Volume & Intensity Shoulder Workout

You’ve spent countless hours hammering your delts with every exercise imaginable and still your shoulders are lagging.

You’ve increased the weight, lowered the reps, and used every kind of intensity method you know.

If your shoulders are still not looking fully fleshed out it’s time to change up your shoulder training once and for all.

It’s time to work your shoulders like a true champion!

Radical growth usually requires a complete change of direction.

The following program will give you the direction you need to build the boulder shoulders required to cap off a perfect V-Taper.

Courtesy of top-ranked national-level bodybuilder Brandon Beckrich, your new plan of attack will provide a fresh stimulus to spark continuous delt growth.

It’s not for the faint of heart. So if you are up for the challenge and ready to grow like never before, it’s time to get busy!

The Importance of Shoulders

Many believe bodybuilding contests are won from the back. It’s time to rethink this age-old myth. As important as wide, thick lats are in beating the competition, big and shredded cannonball delts will really steal the show.

Visible from all angles and lending incredible width to any physique, fully-developed delts form a major part of the much wanted V-Taper. They are also among the most stubborn muscle groups to develop.

Related: Deltoid Doomsday - A Workout for Meteorite Boulder Shoulders

The difficulty in developing stunning shoulders has led many to believe that these muscles are all in the genetics; that we either have what it takes to build elite-caliber shoulders or have to settle for mediocre delt development.

But it is important to realize that complete shoulder development can be achieved regardless of genetics. The problem many have in achieving full delt development comes from a refusal to use multiple movements and enough volume to stimulate the development of all three heads: front, side and rear.

To bring about real change, to broaden the physique, forget about the usual four sets of 8-12 on the press and lateral raise. The delts need stimulation – and lots of it!

The only way to bring those lagging delts up to par is to target them from all angles with a variety of rep ranges and exercises and with more intensity than ever before. Let’s now follow Brandon as he upgrades his own set of dynamite delts.

Brandon Beckrich’s Delt Destruction Workout

Known for his extreme width, Brandon is not afraid to go against the grain when pulverizing his delts. The result: some of the best shoulders in the game today. Using machines and free weights, the superheavyweight contender often goes as high as 20 reps to thoroughly flush his mini-mountains with blood en route to achieving a killer, growth-inducing pump.

Brandon will also limit his range of motion on certain movements to maintain maximum tension on the targeted muscles. His mission is to leave no fiber intact as he inflicts pain on what for many remain stubborn muscles. Follow Brandon’s program, as outlined below, and see if your own ‘growth resistant’ delts don’t refuse to grow.

Warning! This program is strictly for advanced lifters; those with a year or more of solid training under their lifting belts.

1. Machine side lateral raise

Brandon’s signature side delts are targeted first in his shoulder workout. The machine side lateral raise is his weapon of choice. To keep constant tension of the side delts, Brandon brings the resistance to exactly shoulder height. He does this movement standing, with arms slightly bent throughout.

Momentum is minimized. Instead, to force maximum delt growth he keeps his upper torso perfectly still in an effort to focus all of the tension on the medial delts. He stops when no further reps can be completed with textbook form, always following the prescribed rep range for each set.

Related: Super Heavy Brandon Beckrich's Big Back Day

The side delts are notoriously stubborn. To fully engage every last fiber Brandon completes between 10-20 reps across 4 brutal sets.

2. Barbell military press

Brandon uses this phenomenal mass-builder to hammer all three delt heads. Following another sip of his intra-workout energizer, the 260+ lb athlete assumes his position inside a press rack and prepares for lift-off. Brandon purposefully shortens this movement to keep maximum tension on the working muscles.

Not an ounce of effort is wasted as he brings the loaded bar to just below chin height. Upon extension, he stops just short of lock-out. He immediately returns the resistance to the starting position to maintain continuous tension on the delts.

3. Barbell upright rows

An exercise that has fallen out of favor with many, the barbell upright row remains an excellent size-building movement for the delts. Here Brandon takes a shoulder width grip and raises the bar to his lower pec region to prevent impingement of the rotator cuff, and possible injury.

This training tactic not only limits the possibility of injury. It also keeps maximum stress on the shoulder muscles, in particular the side delts. For this movement Brandon does use a little momentum on the final reps, to further extend his set (mass-building movements being more amenable to controlled cheating).

4. Seated dumbbell front raises

Front delts give the shoulders height when hitting the rear double biceps pose. In fact, poor front delts cause the physique to take on a narrow appearance in all side poses. They must therefore be fully formed from origin to insertion.

By the halfway stage of his workout, Brandon’s delts are super-pumped and sore. He still has three key movements to go, with front and side delts requiring further growth-producing punishment. Traps must also be targeted.

To mass-out his anterior delts, Brandon performs his dumbbell front raises seated, to eliminate momentum. He does this movement differently by beginning with his arms hanging vertically, palms facing down. He then raises the dumbbells across his body, to shoulder height, until the ends are almost touching.

He then immediately returns them to the starting position. As with all the shoulder movements featured in this workout, Brandon completes his front raises as fluidly as possible, with no resting at any point in the range. To intensify infliction on his delts, he rests only 15 seconds between each exhaustive set.

This gives him 2-3 minutes to achieve a total of 45 reps across 3 sets. The burn is brutal.

5. Seated rear dumbbell lateral raise

As Brandon strides back to the dumbbell rack, his delts appear to be twice as big as before. Though dripping sweat and breathing heavily, he is far from done. At the business end of his workout (a point where many would have long-since called it a day) he still has two exercises and a combined eight sets to go.

As with the front raises, Brandon performs lateral raises with his palms facing down. With arms extending vertically and elbows pointing up, he lifts the weights to shoulder height before controlling them back to the starting point.

In closely contested events the deciding factor can be as little as an extra cm or two on an often-neglected area. Being one such area, the rear delts can separate first place from second. Thus, Brandon is extra careful to ensure that his are in perfect balance with his front and side delts. The seated rear dumbbell raise is critical to making this happen.

In this movement Brandon focuses on feeling the rear delts working from extension to positive contraction on each of 20 reps per set. Despite the higher rep count, at no point does he lose focus. It is this tremendous concentration that allows him to continue his workout to completion with the same high level of intensity throughout.

6. Machine shrugs

By exercise 6, Brandon’s intensity has not wavered. His focus and energy levels are as high as they were at the beginning of the workout. With 4 sets of shrugs to go, he is eager to fill his mighty traps with blood. Brandon’s traps are so large that, in most other competitors, they would overpower the shoulders.

Fortunately, Brandon is not most other competitors and his shoulders are in no danger of being overshadowed by his formidable trapezius muscles.

Related: Grocery Shopping For Pre-Workout Meals With Brandon Beckrich

Bandon performs this movement by going ultra-high and squeezing hard on the positive. He controls the weight, stopping three-quarters the way down to keep tension on the working muscles. By set 3, Brandon’s form is still perfect and complete tension continues to be placed on his fully engorged traps.

A mere 30 seconds rest between each set has him gasping for air by set 4. Still, he applies maximum effort right up until the very last rep.

The Workout