Today I will be going over some key tips for those who are trying to achieve a wider look. In my opinion, nothing can have a bigger impact on your physique than wider shoulders.
Over 500 years ago, the most respected rulers coincidentally had wider shoulders too. These men had power and were highly respected.
1) GOOD POSTURE IS YOUR JOB 24/7.
The most important component when it comes to creating the illusion of width is always standing and sitting up straight, never hunch because that will contribute to bad posture. You don’t have to walk around like an idiot, but keep your chest up and look more presentable, this actually makes you look more confident too and will make a huge difference in your overall look. Make people critique your posture, take pictures, always try to improve it. I actually do prone cobras almost every day and they help my posture a lot, try them out.
2) GET VERY STRONG ON WEIGHTED PULL-UPS AND CHIN-UPS
Pull-ups and chins done properly will have an incredible impact on how your lats and width will look. The lats are the biggest muscle in the upper body and they could tolerate a lot of volume so slowly start upping your pull-up frequency and volume. Lat pull downs could come in handy here too, but I personally rather do chins because they activate more muscle fibers all over the body and incorporate the core. Big lats will make your shoulders stick out a lot more than you think. In fact, some people who don’t even have big shoulders but are very good at pull-ups actually look very wide because the lats give that illusion of width.
If you want to get look very wide, then one of your biggest priorities should be to do weighted Pull-ups/Chin-ups with the additional external resistance of half of your bodyweight for a solid set of 10.
This means that if you weigh 200lb then your goal should be to do 10 Pull-ups with an 100lb dumbbell strapped to your waist. If you are able to do that then you will have very wide lats.
I have said in some articles in the past that weighted pull-ups can be harmful to those with nagging/sensitive shoulders but if you do them with a neutral grip (one of the safest variations) without sacrificing form or going to failure then you should be fine.
Another one of your goals for bigger lats should be to do 20 consecutive pull-ups straight with strict form with no external resistance.
From my experience, the lats respond very well to a variety of rep ranges so it’s important to hit high rep chins as well as some weighted variations if you are able to do them.
If you want then at the beginning of the week you can do weighted pull-ups and at the end of the week you can do some high rep sets, or you can do them all in the same workout, the choice is yours. The important thing is that you get good at pull-ups and keep hitting PR’s.
Everybody should be able to do pull-ups and some of these goals may seem a bit unrealistic but that’s good because that means you have a lot of work to do which means more room for improvement.
3) DO A TON OF UPPER BACK WORK (ESPECIALLY THE REAR DELTS)
A strong and big upper back will not only improve your posture, but increase almost all of your lifts and make you look a lot wider from the front and from the sides. Upper back work gives your back the thick look that pull-ups alone can’t do. What most people don’t know is that there is width in the front which is from shoulder to shoulder, but there is also the width from the side which is upper back to chest. There’s nothing more depressing than a wide body that looks like a piece of paper from the side! For upper back exercises you should include all types of rows (Pendlay rows, 1arm dumbbell rows, seated rows, chest supported rows & inverted rows) make sure to change the grips often.
The rear delts are extremely important for making you look wider, I would even say that they are more important than the side and front head of the deltoid for giving you that width and thickness. My favorite rear delt exercises besides Deadlifts are scarecrows, rear delt dumbbell flys and face pulls.
4) MAKE THE SHOULDER PRESS YOUR BENCH PRESS
Most people start Monday with a bench press day which is why Monday is usually called national bench press day, but if you are trying to prioritize your shoulders then it would be a good idea to start Monday with a Military press or shoulder press. This will allow you to focus more on your shoulders and not make them an afterthought for Friday or something. Soon I will be finishing up an E-book that is a program for wider shoulders. If you are military pressing 135×5 right now, then you better be doing 155×5 in the next few months if you want to see any changes in your body. The body only adapts if you give it a reason to.
A good goal for bigger shoulders would be to shoulder press (seating or standing) your bodyweight for a set of 10 perfect reps.
When I say perfect I mean that you shouldn’t be doing half reps, you should bring the bar in between your upper chest and eyes (some people can go a bit lower than others but you get my point, pain free ROM).
This means that if you weigh 200lb then your goal should be to barbell shoulder press 200lb x 10 or 100lb x 10 if you are using dumbbells.
I have never met a person in my life who was able to strict press heavy weights but didn’t have big shoulders.
Some of the Olympic lifters may be able to push jerk a lot of weight over their heads but aren’t able to do strict shoulder presses with a lot of weight so you want to keep it strict so that the shoulders do the work.
Push presses can still come in very handy though for using more weight but I like to keep things very simple so get good at strict shoulder pressing and you will be rewarded with big shoulders.
Dumbbells or a barbell are a good option.
5) LOSE SOME BODY FAT (BUT NOT TOO MUCH EITHER)
I’m not a fan of bulking/cutting, but the truth is that if you want your shoulders to look bigger then you have to lose some fat. You would be surprised, but losing 1inch of fat around your waist could go a long way in making you look a lot wider. If you get leaner, you will also see more definition and striations in your shoulders as well. First and foremost, look at your diet.
On the flip side, there can be diminishing returns if you lose too much body fat. Let me explain, if you get down to something like 5-8% you will definitely lose a lot of size but you will be shredded. If you go to 20% body fat then you will definitely have some size but you won’t have abs, so what do you do to get the best of both worlds? My recommendations to be as lean as possible while being as big as possible would be to stay in the 12-15% body fat range for men (and it could be a bit higher for women).
This way you will still have your abs and have that lean waist but you will still have some pretty decent size to go along with it for the perfect v-taper.
6) MAKE STRETCHING A HABIT
Stretching your pecs, lats, biceps, triceps and other muscles in the upper body could have a big impact on your posture and they could help get rid of some of the tightness. On top of that you should be stretching anyway after every workout or else it’ll catch up to you, trust me. Tight pecs will contribute to the hunched over posture which is what we want to avoid.
OPTIONAL TIP: LATERAL RAISES
To be honest, I never got much out of lateral raises, but they are a staple in every bodybuilders program and they have wide shoulders. The military and shoulder presses already hit the lateral head of the shoulder, but if you want to add some side laterals with dumbbells, cables or a band then that’s fine too. Just remember that exercises like side laterals are just a little icing on the cake, to really make a difference in your width you have to follow tips 1-6. Try them out for yourself and see what they do for you, but just don’t expect miracles from isolation exercises.
Bonus Tip: Stop wearing such big clothes.
I used to think that bigger clothes made me look bigger but it actually made me look smaller and it looked like I had a 40-inch waist when I was wearing 2XL hoodies and t-shirts. Shirts that are too big for you will actually HIDE YOUR V-TAPER because they will make your waist look bigger which basically defeats the whole purpose. On the other hand, don’t wear clothes that is too small or else you will just look like you are trying too hard. The best bet is to dress with fitted clothes, not too baggy and not too tight.
So for now on start wearing clothes that fits you well and does a good job at showing your waist to shoulder ratio. Every inch taken off your waist will automatically make you look wider.
CONCLUSION:
Hope you enjoyed this article, there will be many more to come, please send an email if you have any questions and I’ll be more than happy to answer.