I envision to electrify and energize everyone around me with some shoulder workout as I enter the gym on Thunder Thursday, just like Zeus himself had descended at Talwalkars wearing ASICS.

As I make my way to the changing room, with the pre-workout that I had, C4 ,making my heart race wild and Florida making my mind spin, I try to conceptualize the workout for the day. How to hit my deltoids and rotator cuff (major muscles of the shoulder) in the best way to trigger growth and withing seconds I get a clear picture:

(THE NAMES OF THE SPECIFIC SHOULDER WORKOUT ARE LINKS TO VIDEOS OF THE SAME)

Weighted pull ups – Start off with a quick warm up of two sets of pull ups. Try to master lifting yourself up before putting some weight.

dintip- While putting weight, hold it in between your feet. Do as many as you can and then do some without the weight. 

Machine Shoulder Press – First find out your one rep max, then do three sets. First of 12 reps with 50 % of your max, second of 9 reps with 70% of max, 3rd of 6 reps with 85% of your max.

dintip- If it gets heavy at the end, you can take help pushing the wwight up but try to come down by yourself, as slow as you can. 

Arnold Dumbbell Press – Two sets of the exercise named after one of the pioneers of bodybuilding. First set of 10 reps with each hand at 50% of your max capability, followed by 6 reps with each hand of 75% of your max capability.

Standing Side Lateral Raise / Seated Side Lateral Raise superset – This superset involves performing the two exercises without any gap. So at first 10 reps of standing lateral raises followed by 10 reps of seated raises. And then 6 reps of both with a 20% increase in weight.

dintip- Take two mins gap between each super set as you will be exerting your muscles a little extra. 

Front Dumbbell Raises – A simple three set routine with 12, 9 and 6 reps respectively. With weights increasing by 20% with every new set.

dintip- The aim is to raise your hand and hold it for one second parallel to your shoulder before going back down slowly.  

Seated Dumbbell Press  – Two sets of heavy seated dumbbell presses with less repetitions. This helps in crushing those muscles to bits so that you can go home with that winners smile of giving it your all. Do 6 and 4 repetitions respectively and pic a weight to make yourself proud.

dintip- Have someone spot you for this as with heavy weights you just cant risk it. 

So with the shoulder workout imagined I further dwell on doing some abs after this. Maybe a quick high intensity core workout which involves 3 sets of this :

 

The boulder for my shoulder

So with absolute clarity of thought, fire in my soul and a tingling sensation in my shoulder muscles I set off after wrapping my boxing hand bandages for support and picking up my intra workout drink, Scivation Xtend, for another kind of support.

That’s when I get a call from a friend inviting me to his birthday party. A boulder stands in between the workout for my shoulder. All the workout conceptualization, the energy drinks, the mental setup, the oat meal before workout, all of it going to waste in a matter of a one phone call. The moment of reckoning with uscular pain and fatigue on one side and the bliss of partying on another….

I hope he had a good party cause my shoulder workout was a party in itself………

dintip- The pain of today is the pleasure of tomorrow and the apparent pleasure of today leads to a lot of pain tomorrow.