Written by Ron Harris Photography by Per Bernal
25 June 2018

18kuclodanadelts

Best Shoulder Exercises From Dana Linn Bailey and Steve Kuclo

 

At first, you might think this shoulder-training shoot was a mismatch, and we only paired up IFBB Physique Olympia champion Dana Linn Bailey and fellow pro Steve Kuclo because they’re both good-looking and muscular with jet black hair (“Wouldn’t it be cute if we shot those two together?”). But on closer inspection, you realize that each owns some of the best shoulders in their respective divisions. Kuclo’s delts are one reason the Kingsnake appears so incredibly wide and imposing onstage, and Dana Linn Bailey’s caps are her signature body part that has helped her vault past all her rivals in Pro Women’s Physique. These aren’t just two pretty faces— they are hard-training young beasts in the gym. And even though their shoulders are far from lagging, they know all about punishing the three-headed muscle group and making it grow.

RH: How easy or tough have your shoulders been to build? Did you ever have to specialize on them because they were lagging, or ease up on them because they were growing out of control?

DLB: They were never lagging and they did grow easily, but I never held back on them. That idea never even occurred to me. The better my shoulders got, and it was a pretty gradual process, the more I wanted. The first thing people think of about my physique is my “pumpkin delts,” or whatever you want to call them. I had a good foundation for a V-taper from swimming competitively since the age of 5. But I had to work to build all the muscle I have today. My shoulders came faster than something like my legs, which are still a work in progress, but I have always worked them hard.

SK: I would lean more toward easing up on my shoulders. They are definitely one of my most gifted body parts, and they grow easily. The real struggle for me has been keeping them out of my chest and back exercises, because they have a strong tendency to take over. For that reason, even when I’m not training them directly, they are always getting worked. I’ve backed off on them, but I’ve never stopped training them completely for more than a week at a time. That being said, many times my “training” for them on many occasions has just been a few sets of lateral raises done after my chest or back workout to maintain them.

RH: What was your early shoulder training like, and how has it evolved over the years?

DLB: It really wasn’t very different at all from what I do now. It’s always been a lot of volume and a lot of exercises, as in seven to eight. I usually do two exercises each for the front, side and rear heads, plus a press and maybe an upright row too, a couple of compound movements that tie everything together. I do about five or six sets of each exercise, usually six.

SK: My shoulder training was a lot more intense earlier in my career. I trained them hard and they grew fast. I used to train with national-level super heavyweight Justin Harris, and the weights I was using at 18-19 years old were considerable. I could do clean and presses with 225-275, seated military presses with 315, and laterals with 70-80-pound dumbbells. One thing I got stronger on over the years was the military press. I can handle 405 on that now. But the biggest change has just backing off and not working them quite as heavy or as hard, because they could easily overpower my torso if I let them.

RH: What are some of your favorite techniques to use on shoulder day to make the exercises tougher and more productive?

SK: On all my lateral movements, I like to lead with the elbows and make sure they always stay higher than my hands. This is so the shoulders do the work, not the traps. With any lateral raise, it’s all about finding the perfect groove where the delts are doing the work and getting that isolation you’re after. I see some guys doing laterals with really heavy weights, and they’re doing little jumps to get every rep going. I can’t even guess what other body parts are getting in on those … probably the calves? Another technique I like to use on laterals to eliminate momentum is to pause at the bottom of every rep.

RH: Just so you know, Dana does those little jumps. I have it on video.

SK: I guess it works for her, but these other guys I see doing it don’t have delts like hers!

RH: Dana, your favorite techniques?

DLB: I love supersets, drop sets and cheating reps that are always done in addition to strict reps, not in place of. My goal is to keep that pump and that blood in my shoulders as long as possible, and that’s not easy to do. As soon as you put your arms back down, the blood starts recirculating out of them. Those jump reps I do on laterals were at the very end of the set to take the side heads deeper into exhaustion. Cheat reps worked for Arnold on curls, didn’t they?

RH: Indeed they did. Where do you think most guys and girls go wrong with their shoulder training in terms of what prevents them from reaching their full potential for development?

SK: Lifting too heavy is almost always the problem, no matter what body part you’re talking about. It’s a bigger problem when you’re doing isolation movements like lateral raises because all these other accessory muscles step in and take the stress away from the deltoids. On overhead presses, going too heavy means you tend to lean back and start hitting more chest. One other thing that happens when the weights are too heavy to handle properly is that you cut the range of motion short. We talk all the time about half squats, but I see plenty of half presses too.

DLB: If you look at the shoulder development of most people, they lack in certain areas. Nobody is lacking in front delts, but you see more mediocre side delts and a lot of fairly nonexistent rear delts. That’s why I have focused more on rear and side delts, doing those first in my workouts. I don’t start with presses because they hit a lot of front delts, which you work on chest day anyway. Front delts are always done last. It makes sense to do rear delts first when you’re fresh, but hardly anybody does that. I also think starting off with presses and going very heavy on them leads to a lot of injuries. And once your shoulder joints or rotator cuffs are in rough shape, it’s going to be tough to train shoulders very effectively.

RH: Dana, I had the pleasure of watching you train shoulders with Jose when I shot you two for an MD video a couple of years ago (Watch the video). The sheer volume you do for shoulders was staggering, and I think you said you were cutting it a bit short for our benefit. Most people caution against anything close to that amount of volume, citing the fact that we already use our shoulders so much when we train chest and back, even on some arm movements for tri’s like dips and close-grip presses. Yet your shoulders have quite obviously thrived on this high-volume approach. Do you think you are the exception or the rule? Should most MD readers attempt to do as much as you do, or would most of them become horribly overtrained?

DLB: Everyone needs to figure out what works for them, and that won’t even be the same for all your body parts. I do higher volume for my shoulders and back, lower volume for my chest— and it will really get interesting on leg days, when I do some exercises for a few heavy straight sets and others for drop sets and double drops. I base my workouts on instinct and emotion now, and I never have a set workout ahead of time that I am intent on following exactly. A lot of times I won’t know which exercise I’ll do next until I finish the one I’m doing. This isn’t for beginners. You need to know your body and have a good sense of what it needs to train this way.

A few years ago when I trained all the time with my husband Rob, we did have set workouts. The problem with that, especially if you train at a commercial gym, is that you might have your heart set on starting off your workout on this particular leg extension. You get there, and someone’s on your machine! Then it’s like, fuck! Your workout is ruined. Better to be flexible and have options.

 

Military Press

Steve:

“This is always going to be the bread-and-butter mass builder, and it’s always been my favorite type of press for the shoulders. I will do either that or the Hammer Strength behind-neck press. I take a good grip on the bar, and lower it to chin level. When I press, I don’t go all the way to lockout because I want to keep tension on the shoulders. I also use a seated bench with a foot pedal. With that, I can drive my heels in and it keeps my back flat up against the seat back.”

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Dana:

“I used to do these a lot more years ago, then I moved on to using more dumbbells. Eventually, I was training by myself most of the time, so I did my presses on the Smith machine. Now Rob and I have our own private gym, The Warhouse, and we have our own machine fabricator named Joe Weaver. He builds a lot of Strongman equipment, and he built us a vertical and a horizontal Viking press, which is a standing shoulder press machine. I love it, and that’s what I use now unless I’m on the road— which is quite a bit.”

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Lateral Raises

Steve:

“Most of the time I do these standing, but I will do them seated at times too. Sitting helps cut back on the momentum for sure. Everyone needs to find the right form for themselves on these, and that should be dictated by how much you feel them in your side heads. Start very light to figure that out before going with heavier dumbbells.”

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Dana:

“My favorite technique on lateral raises is to do a drop set, but the two sets are done in different styles. I start off with a pretty heavy weight, with the dumbbells in front of me. The form is a bit loose, and my arms have a good bend in them. I can go up to 45s that way. Once I get 8-10 reps with those, I put them down and pick up a lighter pair for a stricter set of 8-10. On these, I start with the dumbbells at my side and my arms are almost straight as I raise them up. You have to try it.”

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Machine Lateral Raises

Steve:

“This was shot at the gym I train at, and this is the machine I like to use to superset with machine presses. I’m able to feel not only the side heads of my shoulders working with it, but also where the side and rear heads tie together.”

Dana:

“I use a technique on these that I stole from Jose Raymond when we’ve trained legs together. He does this for leg extensions, but it works perfectly on the lateral raise machine too. It’s 15 reps in the top half of the range of motion, 15 in the bottom half, then 15 full reps. I do two of those 45-rep sets as a warm-up, then do four drop sets of about 10 and 10 reps, 20 total.”

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Rear Lateral Raises

Steve:

“I like to mix it up with rear delt training. Sometimes I use dumbbells, and other times I will use the reverse pec deck machine. Some guys need to use higher reps to feel the rear delts working, but I have always had a strong mind-muscle connection with my shoulders. 10-15 reps is perfect for me on any rear delt movement.”

Dana:

“I find that I am able to keep much stricter form and isolate the rear delts better if I do these facedown on an incline bench. Otherwise, it’s too easy to cheat and start using your traps and rhomboids.”

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Front Raises

Steve:

“I can’t say I do a lot of front delt work. Anyone who is lacking in that area should definitely include front raises with either a barbell or dumbbells in their shoulder workouts. Mine are pretty much all set at this point.”

Dana:

“I always do front delt work, but as I said before, I save it for the end. I like dumbbell front raises, and I also like using a cable, with my back to the weight stack and the short bar attached to a low pulley.”

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Shrugs

Steve:

“I save shrugs until the very end of my shoulder routine because it doesn’t take much for me to hit them right. Like my shoulders, they grow easily. So four sets of shrugs with a machine like a Hammer Strength or dumbbells is all it takes. It’s a body part that could probably grow out of proportion for me if I wasn’t careful and did more for it.”

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Dana:

“Shrugs are something I don’t do, because my traps are already developed to the point they are, just from being worked indirectly on other back and shoulder movements. For the look I am after as a representative of Women’s Physique, having traps up to my ears wouldn’t be desirable. And I am pretty sure if I worked them, that’s what they would look like.”

Dana Linn Bailey

danalinnbailey.com

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Steve Kuclo

stevekuclo.com

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Steve’s Off-Season Training Split*           

Day 1:    Chest

Day 2:    Back

Day 3:    OFF

Day 4:    Legs

Day 5:    Shoulders

Day 6:    OFF

Day 7:    Arms

Day 8:    Hamstrings

Day 9:    OFF

Repeat

*Normally Kuclo works 24 hours on and 48 hours off as a firefighter. The off days are built into that schedule. If Steve has more time off for whatever reason, he will simply continue the sequence without rest days.

Steve’s Shoulder Routine

Hammer Strength Shoulder Press              4 x 8-12

superset with

Lateral Raise Machine                              4 x 8-12

Bent Dumbbell Rear Laterals                     3-4 x 10

superset with

Barbell Upright Rows                                3-4 x 10

High Cable Rope Pulls for Rear Delts        4 x 8-12

superset with

Standing Dumbbell Laterals                      4 x 8-12

Dumbbell or Machine Shrugs                   4 x 8-12

 

Dana’s Training Split

Day 1:    Legs

Day 2:    Chest

Day 3:    Back

Day 4:    Legs

Day 5:    Delts

Day 6:    Arms

Day 7:    OFF (off-season) or repeat (prep— no days off!)

Dana’s Shoulder Routine*

Reverse Pec Deck Flyes                                      5-6 x 10-12

superset with

High Rope Pulls                                                   5-6 x 10-12

Lateral Raise Machine                                         2 x 45, 4 drop sets of 10 + 10 = 20

Standing Machine Press                                      5-6 x 10-12

Rear Laterals Facedown on Incline Bench             5-6 x 10-12

superset with

Cable Upright Rows                                              5-6 x 10-12

Dumbbell Lateral Raises                                       5-6 drop sets of 10 + 10 = 20

Dumbbell Front Raises                                         5-6 x 10-12

superset with

45-Pound Plate Raises                                         5-6 x 10-12

 

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