Transcription
So before I start training, my shoulders were so narrow, they called me "one strike." They called me "one strike," but they said I was so skinny that my pajamas only had one stripe. Yeah, they went there. In fact, my shoulders were so narrow, I couldn't wear a tank top; they'd have kept on falling off all the time. And I was able to go from being 125 lbs to being a successful natural bodybuilder and build my shoulders. It looked like this: training my shoulders only five minutes a week. That's right, only five minutes a week.
You see, I share something called Naturally Intense High-Intensity Training, a system of high-intensity workouts whereby I train 10, 15, max 20 minutes, three times a week. And then you might think that five to six minutes is up to get fantastic-looking deltoids, and that maybe Kevin's some sort of genetic freak. But here's the deal: over the past 30 years, I've trained hundreds of men and women, some of them successful natural bodybuilding champions, and helped them get better results in less time. And what I'm seeing here sounds unconventional and so uncool because here's the problem: most people who talk about what it takes to get really great and capped shoulders tend to be the very same people who were born with really great, capped shoulders, or in many cases, they're using steroids. I know that sounds a little bit on the incredible side, but bear in mind, getting information from someone who started up with narrow shoulders and had to build them into what you see today. And today, I'm going to share with you some of those principles to cap out those delts, so stay tuned.
Let's talk a little more about this. So, shoulder workouts within the context of Naturally Intense High-Intensity Training, we always train our shoulders on the same day we train our back. So, when I started training, my shoulders were extremely narrow. And before I go any further, I'd like to point out the fact that it took a very long time to reach. Go from looking like this to looking like this. And the most important part: at 50 years old, I still look like this. But now, I still look like this, but I can still train exceptionally heavy because one of the most important aspects of Naturally Intense High-Intensity Training is creating a program that's going to be sustainable. Now, that being said, if you put into place some of these principles, our clients tend to see results, especially in the shoulder region, within even a short of two weeks. And then, in addition to the high-intensity principles that we use, every single workout is different. So, there is no conventional progressive resistance. But here's why it works: muscles get bigger and stronger in response to custom stimulus. And as such, of Naturally Intense High-Intensity Workouts, every single time you train, different exercises, and you do the exercises differently as well. And so, you never get to a comfortable place where you're in a groove. And to make things even more intense, we have no rest whatsoever between sets or exercises. You go nonstop. If I'm going by myself, I will literally get through an entire shoulder workout in about 5 minutes. If I'm training my training partner, what I'll do, I'll do my sets, then she'll do her set. As we always try to minimize rest time because what that does is that it exponentially increases the training intensity.
Now, bear in mind, for the eagle lifters out there, that's going to create a significant drop in how much weight you can actually use. And I remember myself how frustrated I was when I saw my poundage go down when I first started training this way. But over time, the numbers do go back up, and you can see for yourself that I don't train light at all. In order for you to be able to keep on training, you need to be training a sustainable training program that's not going to cause wear and tear on your joints. The number one cause of injury training in the gyms isn't from undering exercise wrong, it's overuse. It's doing the same thing over and over. And many of you out there can attest to the fact that your joints receive exercises, and there's so many people out there who would have had fantastic shoulders and amazing physiques, but because of the fact that they have a nagging injury that gets worse and worse and worse because they're doing the same exercises over and over, they aren't able to do it. That plus the black light average an hour training per week, which is what most people do in a day and about four, five, some even six times a week. And so the amount of wear and tear on your joints is significantly higher. This for training works because to make sure you never have to to because your muscles are always in a place where they have to consistently try to adapt to something that's new to them. And the fact that allows to keep on training without getting injured.
So, the first and most important aspect behind Naturally Intense High-Intensity Training, concentrating your shoulders or any body part whatsoever, is the intensity. The intensity has to be blistering, and we use every single high-intensity principle possible and technique to make our workouts as hard as they possibly can be. A way counterintuitive to most progressive overload systems whereby the idea is to be more efficient and lift more weights, whereas with Naturally Intense High-Intensity Training, the focus is on intensely figuring out how to take that exercise you're doing and make it harder. That being said, it is a challenge, and done correctly, it should be the hardest workout of your entire life. The fact to get your shoulders are in five to six minutes doesn't mean it's going to be easy. It means it's going to be five to six minutes of absolute hell.
And I'm going to allow the basically the exercise selection for you. It's fairly simple. Now, for simplicity's sake, the shoulder must have broken down into the front deltoids, the side deltoids, and the rear deltoids and trapezius muscles. And we make sure we do an exercise for each one of those sections over the course of a cycle. And so, we start with front deltoids for a pressing exercise. We always found a pressing movement. And people think, well, a pressing movement, only one or two press type movements you can actually do, and that's not true at all. We focus on exercises like plyometric pipe push-ups and clean and presses, but we'll also have our clients do things like seated barbell military presses, standing barbell military presses, military presses against the rack, incline military presses, dumbbell presses, palm-out, water arm dumbbell presses, in dumbbell presses, barbell presses, neutral grip dumbbell presses, neutral grip barbell presses, machine presses, cable machine shoulder presses, biking press. So much so that it can be months before you do the same exercise twice. And again, because every single is different, the way you do the intensity is going to be significantly different. And so, after a pressing movement, I'll usually do some sort of lateral raise movement. Now, usually, we'll choose y-raise for your side deltoids, and then the next week, include an exercise for your rear deltoids. And the reason why I do that is because we're training at this type of intensity, most people are not able to do an exercise for their medial deltoids and their rear deltoids in the same workout. You're just too toasted. And so, we break it up over the course of weeks, which also makes it easier to consistently be varying your workouts.
Now, I've been doing this now for over 30 years, and I will do an exercise for my medial deltoid and my rear deltoid in the same workout. But unless I'm training a really advanced athlete or natural bodybuilder, most people will only be doing one of those exercises a week. Now, an important note about side lateral raises: a lot of people have shoulder pain doing it because they tend to do it every single time they train their shoulders. So, over the course of several months, several years, it becomes painful. But bear in mind, standard lateral raises aren't the only exercise that builds your delts. There are so many exercises you can do within the context of Naturally Intense High-Intensity Training. We always mix it up and do something different. So, just like the presses, every single time you do a lateral raise movement, it's going to be significantly different from the one you were doing before. And the way you do it, again, is going to be a different form execution, ensuring that your muscles are always exposed to unaccustomed stimulus and overload, which is going to guarantee the adaptive response to making muscles bigger and stronger over time.
Now, I come to lateral raises. I tend to go extremely heavy with my clients as well. I have them go really, really heavy because if you really want to activate your medial or side deltoid and get those capped shoulders, you have to go heavy. One of the things I learned growing up and training under one of my coaches was the fact that if you keep on using really tiny weights that are not nice and easy, and again, first rep nice and easy, last rep nice and easy, you're not going to make those muscles grow. If you're a natural athlete, historically, we've always gotten so much information from people who are using drugs, who literally get a muscle significantly larger without actually even having to lift any weights. That's how powerful steroids are. And one of the most important facts about using steroids is that it tends to significantly increase shoulder size. So, a lot of information you get out there, people talking about every single rep should be perfect and the form should be absolutely flawless, are people who literally didn't have to train that hard and probably didn't have to train at all to get the shoulder problem that they have. That's impressive. If you're a natural athlete and you're like me, and you were not genetically blessed with really great shoulders, you are going to have to train really hard and also really push in terms of the weight.
The other aspect is that our shoulders are three-dimensional, not two-dimensional. Everyone keeps on training medial deltoids really, really hard, but they need to collect and don't even think of you're in their rear delts. Your rear delts are going to really make a significant difference in that overall roundness because if you don't have something well-developed rear delts, you're not going to have that three-dimensional look to your deltoid because the bigger your rear delts are, the more impressive your medial are going to look. It's important to do rear delt movements as heavier, if not heavier, than side lateral movements. Really push it in terms of weight and also, of course, in terms of intensity.
And so, after doing presses and laterals, we do trap movements. And we always do a direct trapezius exercise every single time we train. Now, there are a lot of people out there, especially women, who do not like the up in their traps taking it some and get really, really big and really masculine-looking. And trust me, as someone who's trained hundreds of women over the years, that's simply just not going to happen. It's really important to the overall balance, both aesthetically and in terms of injury prevention, to make sure you train all the muscle groups of your shoulders. You can't pick and choose. So, we always train traps, and it's one exercise. It can be an upright row movement or a shrug movement, and there are lots of different ways that we can do shrugs. And so, these three to four exercises are all that I do for my delts. And again, this is not what I'm doing 150 years old to somebody else. This is exactly how we have trained now for decades. That's why I put this with muscle on my shoulders in the first place. As I was truly blessed growing up with a lot of really important people who took the time to help me get to where I am today. And my mom always raised the idea, to whom much is given, much is expected. And so, I do my best to try and share as much as I've learned over the years to help you along your path.
Now, really important because you're seeing this video, make sure you see this video about back training because you train shoulders and back on the same day. And make sure as well you see this video to understand more world trading splits. So, thank you so much for tuning in. Nor do I truly believe venue, and as always, excel here.