Written by Garett Reid | NSCA, CSCS, CISSN, M.S.E.S.S
Fact checked by Sam Coleman, Co-Founder
FACT CHECKED
While barbells and dumbbells are popular for shoulder training, machines offer unique benefits that can enhance your workout. In fact, you can achieve an excellent shoulder workout using machines alone, without the need for free weights. These machines provide a range of shoulder training benefits, including unique advantages that free weights can’t offer.
Anatomy & Function Of The Shoulders
The shoulder is one of the most complicated body parts. It’s an intricate system comprising various bones, joints, ligaments, and muscles. While complex, this allows the shoulder to be the most mobile joint on the human body, with the greatest freedom of movement.
Understanding the basic form and function of the body is crucial for effective training. We’ll cover this quickly, as it’s important to grasp the fundamentals of the body's structure and function to train it effectively.
The Shoulder Joint
The shoulder joint connects the arm to the torso and allows the arm to operate. Together, there are three primary bones involved;
- Scapula
- Rotator Cuff
- Humerus
Concerning the joint itself, it’s classified as a synovial ball-and-socket joint. It’s exactly as it sounds, in which a ball-like structure on one bone will sit inside a cupped structure of another. This allows the arms to rotate and move in any direction.
In the shoulder joint, the "ball" part of the joint is on the head of the humerus, which fits into the cup-like structure of the scapula.
The 3 Shoulder Muscles
Several muscles contribute to arm movement and shoulder stabilization. Key muscles involved in the shoulder joint include:
- Teres Major
- Teres Minor
- Supraspinatus
- Infraspinatus
- Subscapularis
When it comes to the "shoulder muscles," these are actually your deltoid muscles. The deltoids, or "delts" for short, consist of three distinct muscle heads:
- Anterior Delt (Front Delt)
- Lateral Delt (Middle Delt)
- Posterior Delt (Rear Delt)
Each deltoid head has its specific function, but they work together to perform their primary role. When all three contract simultaneously, they enable the arm to extend overhead.
Anterior Delt
The anterior deltoid is located at the front of the shoulder and works with the pectorals to flex the shoulder. Due to the prevalence of pressing exercises like bench presses and push-ups, the front delts are often well-developed.
This means that when looking at your shoulder training, these don’t need a ton of specific attention. Now this does not mean they’re not important, it simply means they already get sufficient training.
Lateral Delt
The lateral delt is positioned on the outer side of the shoulder. It is responsible for shoulder abduction (lifting the arm away from the body) when the shoulder is internally rotated and transverse abduction (lifting the arm sideways) when the shoulder is externally rotated.
Unlike the front and rear delts, the lateral delts receive less indirect training. However, well-developed lateral delts create a "capped" appearance, giving the shoulders a broader look. This means of the three muscles, the lateral delts generally need the most specific attention.
Posterior Delt
The posterior delt, found at the back of the shoulder, collaborates with the lats to perform shoulder extension. It is heavily engaged during pulling movements, which means it gets a lot of work even if not specifically targeted.
However, as your back has a lot of pulling muscles, the posterior delts still could use some special love to be sure you isolate them.
Benefits Of Using Machines For Shoulder Workout
The term “machines” can send some lifters into a frenzy. Almost anyone who has started to learn about strength and conditioning and the benefits of free weights goes through a period where they refute any use of machines. This is a mistake.
Free weights are great and so are machines. Of course machines have some cons, but they also have pros that give machines a place in people’s workouts. Well, at least seven-time Mr. Olympia Phil Heath thinks so, as he famously began using machines for his chest and shoulder training!
With that said, here are some benefits of using machines for shoulder training.
1. Better Isolation Of Muscles
One of the common complaints about using machines is that they eliminate the stabilizer muscles. This is true, but what if that’s what you want? By taking out the stabilizer muscles, machines can allow you to isolate the intended muscles better. In theory, this should result in greater muscle growth over time.
At the same time, the claim that “machines” take out your stabilizers isn’t entirely true, at least not all machines. One of the best machines in the gym is the cable machine. Using cable machines allows a mixture of controlled motion with some freedom of movement. Doing a unilateral shoulder press on the cable machine is an awesome movement to achieve this.
2. Easier To Use
Using machines, it is generally easier to use free weights as the track is fixed. For many machines, you just need to get your body in position and press or pull the load. Compare that to some free weights where you have 100% freedom of motion, meaning your form is 100% your responsibility.
3. Greater Range Of Motion (Some Exercises)
Many machines allow a greater range of motion. The best example is using the cable machine (yes, we love the cable machine) for the lateral raise. When using a dumbbell, the movement must start with the arm hanging down straight. Compare that with the cable machine, where your arm can cross your entire body. This allows a much larger range of motion.
Again, this isn’t true for every exercise or every machine, but it is something to consider.
4. Evenly Distributed Force
One of the biggest drawbacks of using free weights is that the load will vary greatly during different parts of many exercises. The best example of this is the lateral raise.
When performing the lateral raise with a dumbbell, the load will get significantly heavier the farther you raise the weight away from your body; this is basic physics. At the beginning of the movement, the resistance will be directed straight down. As a result, there will be minimal stress on the muscles,
When you start moving the weight away from the body, the resistance will still be directed straight down, but the load will begin moving farther away from the body, thus increasing the moment arm. This results in greater torque, even though the same weight is used until the dumbbell is lifted. As a result, the resistance will vary greatly from the beginning of the movement to the end.
Compare that to the cable machine, which lets you set the cable up at an angle. This will help cause a smoother and more consistent force. Another example is the rear fly with dumbbells or a Pec Dec.
Top 5 Shoulder Machine Exercises
We’re now going to lay out your entire shoulder workout that you can do with machines.
1. Seated Smith Machine Shoulder Press
Start your shoulder workout with a seated shoulder press on a Smith Machine. Use a slight angle to help with shoulder mobility when setting the seat up.
This will be your main exercise and allow you to use your heaviest load.
2. Machine Shoulder Press (Neutral Grip)
Next up is the machine shoulder press. However, you’ll use neutral grips with your elbows in front of your body.
The primary reason for this is to simply add variation as you just did a similar movement with the Smith Machine shoulder press. Using the same grip and biomechanics wouldn’t make sense, as variation is key.
3. Unilateral Cable Shoulder Press
Surprise!
Or probably not, as we talked about this exercise above. Performing a single-arm shoulder press on the cable machine is no joke and is probably more challenging than dumbbells in terms of stabilization.
Depending on how your cable machine is set up, you could perform these standing up or kneeling down. Stand so your shoulder is facing toward the pulley and several feet back. This allows you to perform greater shoulder abduction to hit the lateral delts.
4. Reverse Fly (Machine)
The reverse fly is one of the best exercises for hitting your rear delts. Even though it’s a single joint exercise, many muscles are involved, just as in all pulling muscles. Therefore, to better isolate the rear delts, use a neutral grip with your palms facing each other. Studies have shown that this setup is the best way to hit the rear shoulder muscles.
You could use the cable machine to perform reverse flies if needed. However, the cables allow greater freedom of movement, which could make it a bit more difficult to isolate the rear delts as, again, there are so many muscles on your back.
5. Cable Lateral Raise
The cable lateral raise is our go-to exercise for the lateral delts, regardless of whether you can use frees. As discussed above, performing the lateral raise with a cable machine provides smoother and more consistent resistance and asa greater range of motion.
Full 'Machines-only' Shoulder Workout
Now that we’ve reviewed the shoulder machines exercises, we’ll lay out an entire shoulder workout.
- Seated Smith Machine Shoulder Press 3X6
- Seated Machine Shoulder Press (Neutral Press) 3X6-8
- Cable Unilateral Shoulder Press (Kneeling) 3X8-10
- Rear Delt Fly 3X8-12
- Cable Lateral Raise 3X8-12
Running This Shoulder Workout
The same basic training principles apply to both machines and free weights. The Smith machine will be your primary shoulder exercise and will be done using 6 reps. This will be the main strength-building exercise, so your primary goal is to increase the load as you progress.
After that, you’ll gradually use lighter weights and more reps. You see a range of reps, such as 6-8 or 8-10. You’ll start with a weight that has you performing reps at the lower end of the scheme. You’ll perform more reps as you progress until you hit the upper range. At this time, you’ll add some load and repeat the process.
Related: Best Delt Stretches
Training Shoulders Twice A Week
Now if you use a program that has you train your shoulders or pushing muscles twice a week, you could divide these exercises into two sessions.
Session 1
- Seated Smith Machine Shoulder Press 3X6
- Cable Unilateral Shoulder Press (Kneeling) 3X8-10
- Super: Rear Delt Fly 2X15-20 & Cable Lateral Raise 2X15-20
Session 2
- Seated Machine Shoulder Press (Neutral Press) 3X6-8
- Rear Delt Fly 3X8-12
- Cable Lateral Raise 3X8-12
Notice how we have you do a super set in the first session with very reps for both the rear delt fly and lateral raise. Again, these muscles could use some extra love so if you have the time, giving them that extra love makes sense.
Related: How many exercises for shoulders per week?
Building Boulder Shoulders With Machines
There’s no reason you can’t build powerful shoulders only using machines. In fact, opting to only use machines to train the shoulders provides many benefits and can be used effectively in everyone’s shoulder workout; it might even be the optimal option for certain people. Barbells are awesome for training your shoulders and machines are awesome to train your shoulders. The most important thing you need to do is just train your shoulders and you can start with this shoulder machine workout!
Must Read: Arnold Shoulder Workout Routine
Garett Reid
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