Ahh, broad shoulders. Girls love them, guys envy them. You just can't go wrong having massive shoulders now can you? And I have a great routine for you to widen them and to achieve the shoulders of colossus!
When you're passionate about bodybuilding, getting a compliment from someone who thinks your body, or rather, some specific part of your body looks great, is such a natural high that you immediately feel that all the time put in has been well spent.
All the blood, sweat and tears, (that's right, tears, because we train till we cry don't we?!) put in through it all, the effort, the pain, is all of a sudden erased from your memory and replaced with a sense of indescribable joy. You know the feeling right?
But in order to get to that point when our body looks great and when we get compliments from girls, or guys, (whatever you prefer, I'm not judging), we need to crush and rebuild those muscles time and time again. Not to mention to eat right and sleep really well, but that's another story. Today is all about the workout itself, the shoulder workout that is. If you want the Shoulders of Colossus, then read on.
Did You Know?
The Colossus of Rhodes was a bronze statue of the Greek god Helios, erected in the city of Rhodes on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos between 292 and 280 BC. It is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Before its destruction, the Colossus of Rhodes stood over 30 meters (107 ft) high, making it one of the tallest statues of the ancient world
Mission Briefing
You can never go wrong with having massive shoulders; girls are going to be drooling while guys are going to envy you. That's right! But obviously, you need to work out all the muscles of your entire body otherwise you'll just look plain silly, but you already knew that I'm sure. So let's take a look at what you're up against here.
The thing I love to do and what has given me great results is to use supersets mixed with some standard sets as well. Thing we want to do though is to enter the gym with 110% focus, hit those shoulders fast and mercilessly from all angles, and then leave the gym feeling like you've just been hit by a truck and like someone has thrown napalm upon your shoulders.
Your mission here is simple: get in - destroy - get out. When done, you can call your mom and cry, that's ok. Then rest those suckers for a week and watch them grow until next time. You can and should of course work out other muscles in the meantime.
I have six exercises for you all in all for this workout, with one of them working your traps. So are you ready to put on some serious mass, because here we go!
The Workout
We're starting with a superset of side lateral raises combined with standing barbell press behind the neck. After you're all warmed up, grab a couple of dumbbells along with a barbell with the weight of your choice. Go heavy but not too heavy because it's important that you use absolute perfect form throughout the whole workout. There's only one rule: if you can't use perfect form then lower the weight.
Do 10 reps of side lateral raises and immediately when done put the dumbbells on the floor, pick up the barbell and do 8 reps of standing barbell press behind neck, without any rest in between the exercises. Do 4 sets altogether, no excuses. Rest no longer than a minute between each superset, and when you're all done, you should have worked up a great sweat and a burning sensation in your shoulders that will just keep increasing as we go.
Now find yourself a bench, some heavy dumbbells and be seated my friend because it's time to do some pressing to slab some meat on those shoulders of yours. We're talking seated dumbbell press here and we're gonna do 3 sets of 8 reps per set. So sit down and start pressing away. This time you can rest a good 1-2 minutes between each set.
Yeah, yeah, I know it hurts but we're just halfway through the workout so stop whining and let's focus on our second superset. This one is a combination of front dumbbell raises, and dumbbell shrugs for your traps.
Find some dumbbells that are not too heavy, preferably the exact same dumbbells that you used for side lateral raises earlier. Also, find some dumbbells for the shrug exercise and go really heavy here because we're out to annihilate!
Now, start off with 8 reps of front dumbbell raises and immediately when done, put those dumbbells on the floor and pick up the heavier set of dumbbells and do 6-8 reps of dumbbell shrugs. Use very strict form here and really try and touch your ears with your shoulders when doing Shrugs.
You need to do 4 supersets here and you're allowed some rest in between each superset, but please, for your own sake, don't rest too darn long, and don't lose that focus even though you're resting.
Tired? You should be, and if you're not you need to go back and figure out what you're doing wrong because by now your body, well, your shoulders, should be begging you to leave the gym. But you're not gonna because we're not done yet!
One more exercise to go and then you can leave the gym fully satisfied, and go home and reap what you did just sow. Reverse flyes is the exercise that'll end the Shoulders of Colossus workout, and this one will hit your rear deltoids beyond belief!
Find a bench, grab some heavy dumbbells and do 8 reps of reverse flyes. You need to do 3 sets of this exercise with about a minute rest between each set.
That's it, we're done. Now, let's take a look at the routine we just completed.
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Conclusion
Can you feel your shoulders burn? I promise it will be worth all the pain you've just gone through when you've completed a handful of workouts using this routine and start seeing your shoulders reach a new level of growth.
Now, drink a protein shake of your choice, my choice would be 100% Whey Protein from Optimum Nutrition, they'll do the trick for sure. Then hit the showers and head on home for that massive post-workout meal full of rich nutrients that will help repair all the damage you just caused.
Rest your shoulders for a week, then do it all over again and soon you shall have the Shoulders of Colossus!