Building powerful shoulder muscles and getting toned arms is a different process for women than it is for men. They will typically use different exercises, though they share some of the same ones.
We’re going to share with you the best shoulder exercises for women that strengthen your shoulders and arms. Building up your shoulders is important if you want to avoid injury as you work out.
Where a lot of people will focus on their biceps and triceps, perhaps to get rid of bat wings, people often forget to work their shoulders. This overlooked part of the upper body is an important component of your arm support system.
If you’re not working and strengthening your shoulders, you can end up hurting yourself as you do arm exercises.
This is especially true for anyone who likes to do pushups, pull-ups, and weightlifting. Those are all greatupper body and arm exercises, but they strain and stretch the shoulders.
If your shoulders aren’t strong enough to handle these kind of workouts, you can end up out of commission for a few weeks while your shoulders heal after an exercise injury.
But, if you’re doing the best shoulder strength exercises for women, you will have strong and healthy shoulders that support the other upper body exercises you’re doing. You are less likely to need time to recover. If you do get injured, you can heal faster and get back to working out soon.
Here are some great exercises you can use to strengthen your shoulders and upper arms, and get that beautiful, toned look that you want.
Half Turkish Get-Up
Start in a reclined position on your back, with your arms straight on the floor resting at a 45-degree angle from your body. Your right leg should also be on the floor at a 45-degree angle. The left leg should be bent so that your foot lays on the floor flat, and your left arm should be extended straight towards the ceiling, with your elbow locked.
The extended left arm needs to be holding a dumbbell or kettlebell. This will help put stress on your shoulders and arm to develop shoulder and muscles.
As you do this exercise, you can look towards your extended left arm and the weight. Put weight onto the right arm and sit up to where you rest on your right forearm.
Press the right palm down and press on your left foot to push your hips into the air. Your right leg should stay straight as you do this.
From there, slowly reverse back to the original starting position. This single rep should be done about 10 times on each side.
You should try to get in three sets for each exercise session and rest only as much as absolutely necessary.
This is a great way to work a lot of your body all at once with a focus on your upper arms and shoulders.
Bent Over Rear Delta Fly
Your starting position will be standing with your feet hip length apart and your knees bent. The knees should be hinged forward at the hip joint and your back should be flat. Your torso should be bent forward so that it is parallel to the floor.
You also want to have a pair of dumbbells in your arms and extend those toward the floor. The elbow should be bent slightly with palms facing each other.
From this bent over standing position, you want to raise both arms up and out. They should move out to the sides and your shoulder blades should move towards each other as you raise your arms.
Once your arms are fully extended outward, you can return to the beginning position. This complete rep should be done a total of 12 times.
You should do three sets during each workout session, and you can split them up as needed throughout the session. You should rest only when absolutely necessary.
This exercise works a lot of your arm and your abdominals, but the focus is definitely on the shoulders. This is one of the best weight shoulder exercises for women because it doesn’t exert lot of the body.
It’s a great targeting exercise for your shoulders to help build muscle there and strengthen that part of your body.
Upright Row
You can do this exercise with dumbbells, a barbell, or cable. It’s a great way to target your deltoid, rotator cuff, pectorals, and upper back. This is considered one of the best shoulder building exercises for women.
The reason it is so well liked and well thought of this because of the versatility it allows. There are a few different placement positions you can use in this exercise. Which one you use will depend on the equipment you want to utilize and your range of motion.
You can use a wide grip with this exercise to focus on your triceps and deltoids. A narrow grip can help to place the focus on the neck, upper back, deltoids, and trapezius.
Be careful about doing this exercise if you have shoulder pain or some health condition that affects your shoulders and back.
The upright row starts at a standing position with legs a hip length part. You can hold your barbell or dumbbells down in a relaxed position.
Then, move them up to your chin level and return back down slowly to the original position. That’s all there is to this exercise, and it really does work the shoulder muscles because of how high you’re lifting the weights.
Be careful about how heavy the weights are that you use for this exercise, as you don’t want to overdo it. A lot of people will find this very simple and easy to do at first, and then they do too many of them at once.
When you’re first starting out, it’s good to stick to about 20 of these at one time. You can do three sets of 20 reps throughout your workout session, and you may want to spread it out so that you don’t put too much strain on your shoulders.
If you’re looking for one of the best arm and shoulder exercises for women over 50, this is a good one to start with. You can use weights that are fitted to your strength and ability. You can start with small 5-pound weights and move up from there as your shoulders strengthen.
Overhead Pull-Apart
For this exercise, you will need a resistance band. Stand with your feet shoulder length apart and hold the resistance band tightly between both of your hands. Your arms should be straight at your sides and the palm should be facing toward your body.
You should do this exercise without bending your elbows at all. Holding the resistance band, pull your hands apart and raise your arms up over your head and as far backward as you can comfortably move them. Then, slowly return your arms to the starting position.
This rep can be done 10 times in a row, and you should repeat two more times in a single exercise session. It’s okay to rest after a set of 10 reps, but no rest for too long.
This is one of the best shoulder exercises for delt mass for women and an easy one for most people do. It’s a great way to start your shoulder strengthening routine. We don’t have to strain or stress your shoulders out by having too much weight. You can put as much force and resistance and as you felt comfortable with.
It’s important that you rest between sets of reps when doing the best shoulder exercises for deltoid mass for women. You don’t want to overly strain your shoulders, especially when you’re first starting out. However, you don’t want to rest too much with these exercises.
You’ll lose some of the benefits and your heart rate can drop. Keeping that heart rate up is great for your cardio and heart strengthening and great for fat burning as well.
If you find that shoulder exercises like the ones listed above are too strenuous for you or you are very sore after the workout, you can lower the amount of reps you do for each one or you can spend more time stretching before you start your workout session. This can help reduce muscle soreness and improve muscle recovery.
