To get a perfectly symmetrical body, you need to work on all body parts, including your shoulders. A good pair of solid, round shoulders will always look awesome, especially when wearing any tube top, tank top, or hot little white dress. Luckily, you're never too late to train your shoulders and make them look tremendous. There are several nice and effective shoulder exercises for women that will definitely help if you're ready to challenge yourself.

Best Shoulder Exercises for Women

To make shoulder exercises work, you need to ensure that you lift the right amount of weight. It should be heavy enough to challenge your arms and shoulders, but be light enough to allow you to perform every move safely and properly. Going for heavier weight may look tempting, but this will keep you from maintaining proper form. You may even injure yourself if you find it difficult to keep weight from swinging while performing certain exercises. If you've selected the right weight, here are some of the best shoulder and arm toning exercises you can do.
1

Seated Dumbbell Press

The exercise is quite effective for your shoulders and works your arms and a bit of chest as well.

How to do: Sit on a flat bench with feet firmly placed on the ground. Make sure to keep your back straight. Now, hold a dumbbell in each arm and lift them to up until they level with your ears. With palms facing forward, press dumbbells up until your arms are almost straight. Avoid locking your elbows. Slowly return to the starting point and repeat.

2

Front Dumbbell Raise

The exercise targets the front of your shoulders. By doing this regularly, you will be able to add strength and size to your shoulders.

How to do: Stand in a comfortable position with feet shoulder width apart and a dumbbell in each hand. Keep dumbbells in front of your body and lift slowly until the dumbbells are in level with your shoulders. Keep your arms straight and don't swing while lifting dumbbells up.

3

Side Lateral Raise

The exercise works wonders to develop the middle head of your deltoid.

How to do: Stand in a comfortable position with dumbbells on your sides or slightly in front of your body. Raise your arms laterally while making sure there's a slight bend at your elbow joint. Keep lifting it up until your arms reach your shoulder height. Lift slowly and don't jerk while lifting. Start with lighter weights in the beginning.

4

Bent-Over Dumbbell Rows

This compound free-weight exercise helps you build stronger shoulders and works many of your upper-body muscles as well.

How to do: Do this exercise with heavy dumbbells. Stand in a comfortable position with your feet hip-width apart. Hinge your torso forward while pushing your hips backward. Make sure your lower back is straight and not hunched. Hold dumbbells in your hands and lift them bending your elbows out to your sides. Lift in a controlled manner and return to the hanging position slowly.

5

Shoulder Cycles

You can use this exercise to improve strength of your arms and work other muscles in your upper body.

How to do: Stand in a comfortable position with your feet at least hip-width apart. Pick a lightweight dumbbell in each hand. Starting with dumbbells at the side of your body, lift your arms in front of you until they are parallel to the ground. Now, slowly open your arms to make a 180-degree angle. Lower your arms slowly to the starting point.

6

Chest-fly Hand-Off

It is a great exercise to build your shoulders while making your hands work enough to keep them in shape.

How to do: Lie on your back with your arms above your chest, knees bent, and feet placed firmly on the ground. Grab your lighter dumbbell and raise your arm keeping your elbow slightly bent. Now, shift the dumbbell to your other hand as you reach the center. Repeat.

7

Overhead Triceps Extensions

This is one of the best shoulder exercises for women that also work great for your arms. If you want to know how to tone arms while building your shoulders, try overhead triceps extensions.

How to do: Pick a heavy dumbbell in each hand and lift it above your head. Make sure that your forearms are straight and your upper arms are in line with your ears. Without moving your elbows, slowly extend your forearms up above your head. Bend your elbows again to move back in the starting position.

8

Planks Ups

Try this exercise if you're not just looking for great shoulder exercises for women, but also want to perform such moves that will work your shoulders, core, triceps, and chest as well.

How to do: Start by lying on the floor with your face down. Now, slowly lift yourself up and balance your body on the balls of your feet and your forearms. Keep your legs straight while keeping your back flat. Now, change your position and start putting your bodyweight on your one hand and then the other – this will put you in a push-up position. Hold it there for a while and return to the starting position.

9

More Shoulder Exercises with and Without Weights

Here are some other arms and shoulder exercises for women that they can do to see good results.

  • Push-ups: You can always include pushups in your workout sessions to improve the size of your shoulders, chest, and arms.

  • Pull-ups: Good, old-fashioned pull-ups are still effective, especially when you go for an underhand grip. This will target your back and shoulders. You can start with on a pull-up bar assistance machine if you find it difficult.

  • Shoulder shrugs: The exercise involves holding dumbbells in your arms down by your sides and shrugging your shoulders in a controlled way. Lift your shoulders as high as you can for better effects.

10

Sample Routine

You can develop your own plan as well, but if you're lifting for 3 months or less, you should start with light weight and perform 2 sets with 10 repetitions in each set for at least a couple of days a week.

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