Broad shoulders are the staple to a more aesthetic physique. They make you look bigger, while also making you appear leaner – through their contribution to the V-taper (where broad shoulders and a wide back give out the illusion of having a narrow waist).

It’s not just cosmetics, though. Your delts harness quite a lot of power and contribute a lot of it to other exercises such as dips and the bench press.

Great! Now all you have to do is do lateral raises and shoulder presses, right? But what about those who don’t have the time to visit the gym, or just don’t want to.

The solution? Working out your shoulders from the comfort of your own home.

In this article I am going to list the best shoulder exercises that you can incorporate into a flexible home shoulder workout.

How to make the best of your workout

While nobody’s saying that it’s unheard of developing broad shoulders through bodyweight exercises, every muscle group will benefit more through a workout at the gym. Why? Simply because you can add more weight and have a higher variety of exercises you can use.

So what can one do to contribute to muscle growth when you lack expensive equipment? Well, good news is that progressive overload does not just mean lifting heavier – it involves anything you can do during your exercise that will strain your muscles more than what they are used to.

In our case with a body weight shoulder home workout, that would involve 1) more volume: doing more reps or sets of an exercise (but within reason, as over exceeding 8-12 repetitions will lead to an endurance workout, rather than a growth workout; and 2) prolong the time under tension (TUT) – focusing on a 4 second descent when doing squats, instead of the traditional 2 second one.

So every other week try and increase either one of these two components.

Whilst applying those two elements to your workout you need to focus on one more that I deem even more important – the mind-muscle connection. There are studies that showcase that the better  “muscle focus” (i.e. focusing on using a specific muscle during a given exercise) the better the muscle activation and the better the results.

In other words, what I’m asking of you is to visualize using your shoulders when doing these exercises.

Lastly, to maximize on protein synthesis, train your shoulders twice a week. On average, a muscle group takes 48 hours to fully rest after a workout. What that means is that if you train a muscle only once a week you’re missing out on twice the amount of protein synthesis – i.e. twice as less muscle growth.

1. Push-ups

Great upper body exercise in general, regardless of fitness expertise. While a lot of people associate push-ups with your chest and triceps, we must not forget about its involved into your front delt development.

How to:

1. Get in a plank position with your back straight and legs straight.  Aim to not raise your butt in the air or slouch. Your goal is to make a straight diagonal line from your head to your feet.
Position your hands at about your lower chest level with your palms either open or in a fist.

2. Keep a slight bend in your elbows  otherwise you’ll be taking away the pressure from your shoulders and your triceps and applying it on your elbow joint.

3. Inhale and slowly lower yourself to the floor. Descend to the point where you are just about to touch the floor with your chest.

4. Exhale and push yourself back to your starting position (remember to not lock your elbows).