Fast and Easy Exercise to Develop Bigger Shoulders at Home

In an Athlean-X video, professional trainer Jeff Cavaliere C.S.C.S. breaks down another exercise that will help you develop bigger shoulders with just a pair of dumbbells. This time, he’s focusing on a frequent problem that keeps people from developing their rear delts: they aren’t training their rear delts, or even if they are, they aren’t doing so with enough weight to make a difference.

kneeling hip hugger

Cavaliere recommends the “kneeling hip hugger” for these people. Hold the dumbbells at arm’s length in front of your body and drag them up towards your hips; keeping your elbow as far back behind your back as possible in a kneeling position. On the other hand, the kneeling variation eliminates some of the momentum generated by the lower body, putting a greater amount of strain on the muscles you want to target.

“The shoulder extension controls the rear delt engagement,” Cavaliere adds. “I’m getting more of that rear delt as I go up into greater extension.”

Cavaliere then extends his elbows away from his body to engage the mid delt. As Cavaliere points out, this should be based on the backward motion: You’ve done something incorrect if you can look down your arm and see your elbows at the side of your body.

He advises performing this movement with heavier weights; somewhere between what you’d use on a side lateral dumbbell raise and an overhead dumbbell press.

Bigger Wider Shoulders in 14 DAYS (With 1 DUMBBELL!)

The scoop press, which may be used as a drop set with the hip hugger to build your front delts and rear shoulders, is another excellent way to target your back shoulders. Begin with your elbows locked in a 90-degree angle and the dumbbells at your sides, in the same kneeling posture. Use a scooping motion to raise them in front of you to shoulder height, then into an overhead press.

You’ll avoid the internal rotation upright row posture and more into external rotation, as long as you avoid displaying them in front of your body.