Shoulders

Heads and regions

Front delt
Side (lateral) delt
Rear delt

What it does

Shoulder abduction
Flexion
Horizontal abduction

How to train it

Your front delts already get hammered by pressing. Prioritise side and rear delts.
Lateral raises respond to volume and control, not load. Leave the ego at the rack.
Rear delts are chronically undertrained — 3-4 sets twice a week changes a physique.

Common questions

How many sets of shoulders a week?

12 to 20 hard sets, spread over 2-3x per week. A hard set is one taken close to failure — warm-ups and easy back-off sets do not count towards it. Below that range you are maintaining rather than building; above it, for most people, the extra sets cost more recovery than they buy.

How often should I train shoulders?

2-3x per week. Splitting the week's sets across more than one session means each one is done fresher, and the quality of the last set matters more than the number of them. With 14 movements to choose from there is no need to repeat the same session twice.

Where should a beginner start?

8 of the 14 movements here are rated for a beginner. Learn the compounds first — they teach the pattern and they load the muscle hardest.

What else works the shoulders

45 other movements in the library train the shoulders as a secondary mover rather than as the target. That volume is real and it counts: if a week already contains a lot of these, the direct work needed to reach 12–20 sets is at the lower end of the range, not the upper.

33 more, across the whole library.