Masculine Male Shoulders

You need strong, muscular masculine male shoulders to live a good, healthy life where you can do most things for yourself.  You cannot live well if you are hurting or so weak that you need help to do the simplest tasks.

Big, powerful, muscular shoulders are not so much about how you look.  It is how you feel.  You want to feel strong, healthy and able to do all the weight training you want and get involved in whatever adventurous activities that thrill you the most.

Of course, you will look better. Big, rounded, muscular shoulders look fantastic with your shirt on or off.

It feels good to have a pretty girl her head on your shoulder.  It also feels good to pick a girl up off the ground when you are getting to know her.

Both are benefits of healthy masculine male shoulders.

Good example of Masculine Male Shoulders without being too ripped

It's sad to see men with tiny, weak shoulders.  Slouched over.  Not able to do much for themselves.  Trying to look bigger with padded shoulders in their suit jackets or with their thin little shoulders poking out their tank tops.

Healthy shoulders are not just for your shoulder workouts.  You need good, strong, healthy shoulders for every other workout you do.  The bar rests on your shoulders when you squat.  Your shoulders get pulled when deadlifting, shrugging and rack pulling when you are working to get yoked.  They get stressed in all your back, arm and especially your chest workouts.

Shoulder strength and health is absolutely critical for benching. 

Masculine Male Shoulders
What Not to Do

Don't count on your clothing to make you look bigger.  Padded shoulders in suits look horrible.

Padded suits make your shoulders look wierd

Don't wear tank tops when you are hopelessly thin and weak looking.

This is the exact opposite of the masculine male shoulders you should be working on

How to Keep Your Masculine Male Shoulders Healthy and Injury Free

I have suffered through some incredibly painful shoulder injuries.

All this pain was caused by something I did.  I wasn't in a car accident or something out of my control.

But I never needed surgery.  And I have always come back from shoulder problems so I have a good idea on how to treat your shoulders well even as I did so much to hurt them.

Playing a sport is not out of your control.  Anybody who plays sports and gets injured, it's their own fault.  Sports are filled with people getting hurt.  It's part of the game.  You are more than likely going to get hurt by playing.  You don't have to play.

My first shoulder problem was a stinger from jamming my neck in my senior year of high school football. 

My right arm went all tingly and weak.  I was the starting center and right handed so I had to start using 2 hands to snap the ball since my right arm was too weak to grab the ball by itself.

Looking back, I should have stopped playing for the year.  But we were playing for the playoffs and I was a 4 year starter.  I felt I had to keep playing.  That' s typical in sports.  You play injured.

This injury healed well enough after the season that I felt good the rest of my senior year and started lifting weights.

I continued to lift in college.  But in my sophomore year my shoulder ached so badly I could hardly stand it. 

This was mostly caused by over-training the bench press and performing it in the wrong way.  My elbows were out wide and perpendicular to my body.  I should not have been doing upright rows and behind the neck presses either.

I did not know what I was doing, but I wanted to get bigger, stronger and more muscular.  So I kept lifting and continuing to aggravate my injury and hurt myself more. 

In my 4th year of college, my lifting and the accumulated pain forced me to go to a chiropractor for treatment.  I went 3 times a week for 2 months and eventually felt good again.  Most of the effort was focused on aligning my neck properly.  So I believe it was that football related injury coming back.

The only time I would stop lifting was when I was so busy studying or I when I went home for breaks.

If your masculine male shoulders hurt from lifting, you need to stop lifting for long enough that they feel good again.  The continual stress and strain of lifting will beat your shoulders down.

But since the lifting is creating the body you want, it's physiologically  difficult to stop. 

Then when I was 43 years old, just after I left my wife, I joined a gym to start lifting again.  I was sick of being pale, weak and flabby.

In my exuberance to get back in shape, I hurt my right shoulder, benching wrong, of course. It hurt so bad I could not use my right arm at all.  I had to use my left arm exclusively.

My health insurance was so bad and I was so broke, I did not seek any medical help for this.  I just barely used my right arm with the exception of daily gentle shoulder rolls.  This exercise is done bending over.  You just hang the bad arm straight down and gently swing it in small circles.  As you start to feel better, you can add some light weight.

It took 2 years for my shoulder to feel good again.

Good looking, muscular, big masculine male shoulders from years of work in the gym

Make Your Masculine Male Shoulders Feel Good

You may need to rest your shoulders more.  Give them a break.  Take a few weeks or months off from lifting.

Bent over shoulders rolls help me the most.  You bend over at the waist, supporting your body with one arm and hold a very light object on the injured side and gently twirl that arm.  This is one of the best re-rehabilitation exercises.

Good posture helps too.

Not so much to look better, although you will look better.  But the slouching your shoulders forward, while it's easier in the short term, really hurts you in the long term. 

Try to always lean back when you work your phone, your computer, when you are working at your desk. 

When you relax, make sure you keep pushing your shoulders back into your chair.  Constantly do this and it will pay dividends.

You might need to check your neck health and get some chiropractor adjustments.  It really helps. I spent a lot of money on chiropractic work this year.  It's worth it.  I feel good and my neck feels great.

Neck self massage.  Keep doing it, push your fingers and thumbs deep into your muscles.

Relaxation.  A lot of men have no time to relax.  Your lives are all out of whack with long hours of work, long hours of commuting and long hours of stress caused by your wife.

Don't sleep on your side that much.  I never sleep on my right side because that is the side that has given me the most problems.  I do sleep part of the night on my left side.  I sleep best in this position.  But sometimes, especially after a hard workout, I will need to stay on my back.  Use pillows to keep your shoulders in the right position.

Avoid the hunching of your shoulders.  Your eyesight might be causing you to hunch your head toward your computer screen.  Maybe glasses or a larger font is needed.

Overdoing anything will cause shoulder problems.  This includes sports, fun and work.

From Bold & Determined

8 Reasons Every Man Should Lift Weights

Quote -

Weight training will make you feel strong and fit.

When building your masculine male shoulders, don't go overboard on shoulder exercise volume.  Do a little less than you think.  Especially stop your reps if you feel any twinge or pain.

Exercises to Avoid:

  • Upright rows
  • Behind the neck shoulder presses

Both of these are staples in the bodybuilding world.  They also put your shoulders in a very unsafe position. 

Be careful with isolation shoulder exercises like dumbbell lateral raises and cable work.  It's easy to twist or strain your shoulders on these.

It's better to focus most of your masculine male shoulders workout on standing overhead barbell presses.  This exercise develops a tremendous amount of strength in your upper body.  It's safe if done correctly.  You really should not need that many other shoulder exercises that this as it develops the entire shoulder area.

How to Do the Press
The Main Exercise
To Develop Masculine Male Shoulders

Here are the main ideas on performing the shoulder press properly for developing your masculine male shoulders:

  • Take a narrow grip with thumbs placed at the knurling or just a bit wider.
  • Hold the bar so the bar rests on the heel of your palm, not in the fingers.
  • As you press the bar up, you'll need to sway back a little so you don't hit your chin with the bar.  This little sway gives you a slight bounce to help drive the bar off your chest.
  • You'll take a big breath right before you take the bar off the rack.
  • Then, maybe, a quick breath with the bar on your chest right before your first rep.
  • The rest of your breaths will be when the bar is at full lockout over your head.  Just a quick breath, not deep.
  • You'll actually shrug the bar up at the top.
  • There is no pause at the bottom on your chest on the rest of the reps.  This gives you a bit of a bounce at the bottom.
  • Normally, 5 reps is the correct rep goal to hit.  Less, means the weight is too heavy.  More than 5 reps and you will run out of breath and your form will get sloppy.  Sloppy form causes injuries.  You only had those quick breaths at the top.  When you do high reps, you need a lot more air.  The press is an exercise you cannot get much air while you are doing it.
  • Many coaches teach 3 heavy sets across with the same weight.  At this time, I am doing only ONE heavy set. I am 53 years old with an accumulation of aches and pains.  I do 5 sets total, including warm-ups.  My last workout was 5 reps/bar, 5 reps/bar, 5 reps/65 pounds, 5 reps/95 pounds, 5 reps/120 pounds. 
  • My work set was 120 pounds.  This was a pretty hard set for me.  I barely got it.
  • I had hernia surgery 3 months ago and a severe neck injury 10 months ago.  So I am still trying to regain my strength.
  • I'm trying to keep my ego out of the lifts. 
  • I use collars.
  • Right now overhead shoulder presses are first on my deadlift workout days.  About once a week.

How to Press
Main Exercise to Develop Masculine Male Shoulders

The main takeaway is to take a breath when the bar locked out over your head for the last reps.  This allows you an eccentric bounce at the bottom giving you a bit more power.  Instead of a pause at the bottom to breath and starting from a dead stop.

Press Grip Width

Place your hands closer together.

Bar Placement in Your Hand

Keep the bar in your hand, not your fingers.  The bar should be on the heel of your hand.

How to Get Your Belt Tight

This is how to get your lifting belt tight enough.

What to Buy to Help you Develop
Masculine Male Shoulders

Lifting Belt

I wear a lifting belt on my work set or sets of standing overhead presses.  Usually I wear one on my last warm-up set too as it is usually almost as heavy as my work set.  The belt helps to protect your back and gives you some extra core stability.

The 4 inch thick belt that is narrower in the front is the handiest size to get.

The thicker power lifting belts are probably fine.  But then you need a thinner belt to deadlift.  Unless you are a competitive power lifter, it is an expense you don't need.

This is the belt that's similar to the belt I have been using for years.  Belts are great because they do last a long time, maybe years.   Although you may need to change if you get smaller in the waist (hopefully for me) or as you get bigger and stronger.

Wrist Wraps

When my wrists are sore, I wrap them.  Right now they feel good, so I have not been wrapping.  I am still building up my weights after my hernia surgery, so I am not at my biggest weights yet.

Wrist wraps give you some stability on your work sets and heavier warm-up sets.  A nice benefit from the wrist wraps is they take some time to put on and this gives you a little more time between sets for rest.

These wrist wraps are the kind I use.  They are not very expensive. 

Weight Lifting Shoes

I have a pair of weight lifting shoes that I just wear for lifting.  They have the stiff soles that provide a strong foundation.  They are made of durable material that fully supports your foot.  They have a Velcro strap that further tightens up the shoe.

After feeling how much more stable and powerful I feel in wearing them, I would not go back to wearing regular shoes while weight training.

Workout Duffel Bag

I have a big leather duffel bag with multiple pockets for holding all my workout gear.  I want to just grab this bag and go, not repack it every time I go to the gym.

Here is how I load it:

  • The big main compartments holds my belt, my shoes, a towel, my training log and my water bottle with plenty of room left over.
  • One of the end pockets holds my elbow sleeve, pulling straps and wrist wraps.
  • The other end pocket holds my heavy duty straps that I do not use that much and a zip-loc bag with chalk.
  • One of the small pockets I keep open to put my keys in at the gym.
  • Another small pocket is where I keep my tanning booth eye protection glasses.
  • Another small pocket is for my gym reading glasses, pen and headphones.

I like to put the stuff back consistently so I know exactly where everything is and I don't have to rummage through it to find something.

This bag is really handy and looks good.


You deserve to live a great life.  And spending some of your money on tools to assist in developing your masculine male shoulders is a start. 

Final Thoughts on Masculine Male Shoulders

You will want to focus a good portion of your training efforts on developing strong, muscular masculine male shoulders.  The press should be your go-to exercise each week.

You'll look a lot better with your shirts snug in the shoulders.  You'll like the way you look in tank tops and with your shirt off.

But the main thing is that you'll feel better with strong, flexible injury free shoulders ready for anything.

› › Masculine Man Tips

The only way I could become the happier man I am today was by leaving my wife.  You might be in the same situation I was in.  I suggest you take a look at my book - Leave Your Wife & Become a Happier Man with the 3 Step System.

Click to go to learn more about the book

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