my shoulders just wont grow

[coltrane]

If you are really having trouble with your shoulders, I would do nothing but seated db presses until you have reached a decent level of mass and strength.

Then and only then, worry about medial delts and rear delts...... just my opinion.

I agree.  DB presses just add that size.

Also try seated push presses off a rack.  Put the pins at about shoulder level and do the presses from the front.

[pumpster]

I don't agree that ONE exercise in particular will always do it, because there are several great ones. What you want to do is be open tolong-term trial & error of different exercises and different routines, such as some of the good uns listed here-nice job boys!

Before concluding there are genetic limiations you have to try all sorts of possibilities to see what might unlock unrealized potential-this summer i got some new triceps development after many years, by doing something different.

My prescription: take 2 or 3 of your most effective exercises for a chosen part of delts and do 3-5 superset or triset cycles, with about 1.5 minutes between sets. Overload em-the focus in doing them should be on seeing improvements in reps, weights or reduced rest times between sets. Giant sets that were already mentioned are a similar idea taken to great extremes.

As someone said, when it comes to delts it's about burn. They're dense muscles and can take a lot of sustained work, should be fried. I'd applied that to any muscle though.

[Lord Humungous]

Pre-Exhaust Superset:
{Laterals Behind Back: 4 x 10-12 (very strict, no swinging or heaving)
{Bradford Presses: 4 x 8-10 (seated or standing)

E-Z Bar Front Raise: 3 x 10-15

Superset:
{Bent-Over DB Laterals or Incline Rear Delt Raise: (alternate from workout to workout) 3 x 12-15
{Face-Pulls: 3 x 15-20

I used a pre exhaustion set up like this that did a world of good to bring my shoulders up to par. Now they are a strong point for me, give em a whirl!

[Lucky Lance]

I'm guessing that in addition to your delts not growing, that you also have a hard time getting a good "feel" to them while training and getting a good pump in the delts.  What you probably need to work on first and foremost is to develop a good mind/muscle connection with your delt muscles.  Once you've developed this, then things such as mass and strength should increase for you. 

To develop a good mind/muscle connection, I believe you should try a couple of things.  Do some good warm-ups and stretching before you hit the weights, then go into a light set of high reps of side laterals then the same for rear laterals.  Then pyramid up in weight over 3 sets with either seated dumbell presses or barbell military presses.  THEN go into your heavy sets. 

When training delts or any bodypart for that matter, you need to squeeze the hell out of them -- don't just go through the motions of the exercise and feel that because you went to positive failure that you got the most out of that set.  Even before I start a set of let's say military presses, I've got my delts, arms, traps, lower back and abs, legs, feet planted firmly on the floor, and hands (squeezing the bar like crazy) squeezed and flexed, THEN I start the set and maintain this squeeze throughout the entire set.

I'm assuming you're a natural trainer like I am, so don't go overboard with your total number of sets for delts.  But, like others have said in this thread, don't do too little either since the delts are very dense muscles and need a little bit extra volume to get the job done.  For myself, I do a total of 11 to 12 sets; depending on how I'm feeling it that day.

Eat 7 times a day CONSISTENTLY and get enough rest, and you should see some results in a few months (be patient).

[Bona]

any ideas

i tried everything... H.I.T, High volume, heavy laterals, light laterals high reps, heavy presses, light presses high reps.

please helppppppppppppppppppppp pppppppppppppppppp

i used to have very narrow shoulders, but i broaden them by desperately training relentlessly every alternate days with every technique/routines available, from low volume to high volume, from heavy presses to 100 reps lateral raises etc, super setting, negatives etc, eventually things worked out for me...took me a long time though 

[JackCheze]

I'd say ditch the direct shoulder work for a week or so (maybe two).

The delts are involved during pec and tri days, I don't know what your splits are but it's easy to overwork smaller muscle groups

[benchthis]

I'd say ditch the direct shoulder work for a week or so (maybe two).

The delts are involved during pec and tri days, I don't know what your splits are but it's easy to overwork smaller muscle groups

shoulders
legs (quads)
chest
back
legs (hams)
arms

[buffbong]

i tried doing shoulders years ago in the start of the week and did not like it. like you i was doing chest later on in the week. i feel the delts get overworked in that fashion.
id either train the delts together or train chest earlier in the week and delts two to three days after.

Im not sure your current routine but here is a example of two of my routines.
workout one
seated dumbell presses 10-8-6-4
standing side raises       10-8
standing rear raises       10-10
standing dumbell shrugs  10-10

workout two
seated barbell presses 10-8-6-4
seated one arm side raises 10-8
seated rear raises              10-8
seated dumbell shrugs        10-10

my shoulder responded well with less sets and moving my shoulder workout farther from my chest day.

[SuperMike3288]

The best improvements I ever made were with reasonable volume, using giant sets.

Start with seated barbell press - 4 sets of 12/10/8/8, just to get the blood flowing, then:

Giant set:
Dumbell front raises x 12,
Barbell front raises x10,
Dumbell side laterals x 12,
Upright rows x 10,
Dumbell rear laterals x 12,
Behind back upright rows x 10.

Rest 2 mins then do it all again, for 3 cycles.

Then finish with seated barbell press - 3 sets of 15.

Might not work for everyone, but I did this for about 6 weeks and I saw quite noticeable results.

This would be a good switch-up but I'd probably have to go really light because I think my shoulders would die!

[leonp1981]

This would be a good switch-up but I'd probably have to go really light because I think my shoulders would die!

It was a good routine.  Yeah, the poundages weren't great, especially towards the end of the third cycle when your delts are burning like hell!  But like I said, I could see the difference within weeks.  I'll be using this again in a couple of months time.

[gooer]

i know this is an old thread but anyone who has trouble getting their shoulders to grow: try seated heavy arnold presses. mastering arnold presses got my shoulders huge. try doing massive drop sets. arnold talks about 'running the rack' in the encyclopedia which is starting with the heaviest weight you can press doing as many as you can, dropping 10 or 20 pounds, doing that as many times as you can, drop the weight etc. until you get down to a really light weight such as 30 lb dumbbells.