Broad shoulders

Q. Hi. I’ve been working out for the past 8 months. I have added considerable amount of muscle in my arms, chest and legs. But my problem is I have a narrow shoulder. Is there any way of making the shoulders broad? I am 22 now and do modeling. So it would be great if you can help me out in this situation. Thanks in advance!!

A. If you are in your teens, then there are possibilities of modifying your bone structure by workouts and you might develop a broad shoulder.

But in your case you are already 22. So let me tell you a trick. Have you watched bodybuilders standing on stage in a contest? Let us consider one bodybuilder in particular - “Jay Cutler”. Actually Ronnie Coleman’s shoulders are wider than jay’s shoulders, but still jay creates an illusion of bigger shoulders on the stage.

How is this possible?
If you watch Jay closely, he would have full development in all the muscles, but in particular watch his upper pectoral muscles (chest), his upper lats and his lateral deltoids. These three muscles would be extraordinarily developed. This would give an illusion that Jay’s shoulders are indeed as big as Ron’s.

So in your case we will follow the same strategy. We can add extra focus on the following muscles,
Lateral deltoids
Upper pecks and outer pecks
Upper lats

The game plan:

Do all your workouts religiously and with full dedication.

Pecks:
From now on you would concentrate on two exercises with priority in your chest workouts. The inclined bench presses (drop the bar near your upper peck) and wide bar dips.
A complete upper peck development would create an illusion of a broad frame and development of the outer lining in the peck will endorse the illusion. That’s the reason why we have added inclined presses for upper peck and wide bar dips in the program. Add one more exercise of your choice to your chest workout

Delts:
Do your presses and rear lateral raises in your workout, but the main focus would be to develop an extraordinary lateral delts to give you the rounded appearance of the shoulders to add extra width to the illusion. Adding half inch on both sides would result in one inch increase in shoulder width.

Back:
If we train the pecks and delts properly then we create an illusion of broad shoulders from the front side. But Modeling and Bodybuilding are no puppet shot to view from one side only. People watch you from the front as well as from the back. So never miss your wide grip chins/wide grip pull downs in your back workout. Because the upper lat adds the extra width which looks evident from the back.


All the best…