programming a delts and biceps session

Muscles Worked:

• Anterior Head (front delt)

• Medial/Lateral Head (side delt)

• Posterior Head (rear delt)

• Traps

• Biceps

General Overview when making your exercise selection:

When structuring a delts and Biceps session you should always start the session with shoulders. There are then two options here, you can either pre-fatigue the delts by starting with a form of lat raise (this is my preferred method) OR you can just begin the session with a pressing movement. The benefits of beginning with a lat raise are that it forces blood into the shoulders and ensures there is a solid mind-muscle connection ahead of the pressing movements (as well as making sure the shoulders are fully warmed up as they are very injury prone).

With some pressing movements, eg a bb shoulder press, then the upper chest can often take over a lot of the movement IF the lower back begins to arch. By beginning with a lat raise it activates the delts and this then helps to keep the focus of the presses on the delts rather than the chest. It is important to still do a heavy pressing movement alongside the isolation movements, for example, I would structure shoulders in the following order, isolation movement (lat raise), followed by a pressing movement (DB shoulder press), and then into another isolation movement (front raise).

Pressing movements are an overall builder as they incorporate all heads and allow for overall growth whereas the isolations can then be used to target different elements of the delts to bring up possible weaknesses.

Bicep exercises to select from:

• Standing/seated DB/BB Curl

• Single or dual cable curl

• DB/cable hammer curl

• Preacher curl

• Bicep Curl machine

* When training biceps ensure it is the biceps that are doing the work so chose a weight that is appropriate. For example, a common mistake is when people db curl they often go too heavy and end up either using momentum and swinging or they bring the elbow forward on every rep which then ends up training the front delt rather than the bicep.

Shoulder exercises to select from:

• Shoulder press - Barbell, Smith, DB

• Shoulder Press - Plate loaded machine

• Side lateral raises - DB, machine, cable (seated or standing)

• Front lateral raises - DB, machine, cable (seated or standing)

• Rear Delt Fly - DB, machine, cable

• Upright Row

Blueprint:

• 4 exercises with 2 working sets, reps ranging -8-12 for delt/shoulder exercises

• 2-3 exercises with 3 working sets, reps ranging -10-15 for bicep exercises

FORM IS KING 👑