Get Shoulders Like Superman

When Christopher Reeve landed the role of "Superman", he auditioned wearing shoulder pads.

Why? Because having b-r-o-a-d shoulders is a masculine feature and we expect our superheroes to have the widest of shoulders.

Reeve than spent the next six weeks bulking up so that his real shoulders actually filled out the superman suit. In today's lesson, I'll teach you a few basic exercises that you can do to build your own pair of "superman shoulders."

If you have access to a well-stocked weight room with plenty of free weights and machines, there are quite a few different shoulder exercises that you can use to beef up your shoulders.

However, getting a good shoulder work out at home can prove to be a little more difficult. But don't worry. Because I'm going to reveal some bodyweight only exercises that you can use at home.

The push-up is not usually considered a shoulder exercise, but the truth is you can get an outstanding shoulder workout using just the basic push-up.

I recommend this exercise for beginners because the push-up builds the chest, shoulders and triceps all together at the same time.

Of course, once you can do more than 20-25 push-ups in a row it's time to up the ante.

Once you've built a baseline of strength, it's time to make the basic push-up more difficult and turn the exercise into more of a shoulder movement.

The way to do that is to elevate your feet while doing the basic push-up. This raises the degree of difficulty and puts more emphasis on the shoulder muscles. When you can do 20 or more of these in a row than you might be ready for…

This is advanced exercise that… to be honest with you... separates the men from the boys. The ultimate shoulder exercise is the handstand push-up or "upside down" push-up.

Here's a very "unprofessional" video demonstrating how this exercise is done:

Quick note about the video. The reason I have my legs wide like that is because I trying to avoid kicking out that door window. Ideally, you should try and keep your legs a little closer together when doing this exercise.

Many weight lifters are incredibly weak when it comes to overhead lifting. Sure, they can bench a lot but when it comes time to lift a desk or some other heavy object over their heads... you can almost hear their bloated muscles crumple under the load.

The solution: "Up-side down push-ups".

Upside down push-ups not only blast your shoulders, but also help develop "gorilla-like" traps and strong triceps as well.

Why do upside-down push-ups work so well? Well, it all goes back to the concepts I explained in lesson one. Remember how I told you that scientists have determined which exercises are the most effective for muscular growth?

Exercises that force you to move your body up and down are ultimately more effective than exercises that allow you to keep your body still while only moving your hands up and down.

Traditional shoulder exercises like dumbbell presses allow your body to remain still while your hands move up and down. But when doing up-side down push-ups your hands remain fixed while your body moves up and down.

This is one of those rare exercises that truly forces you to learn how to handle the weight of your own body. Not only will your balance and coordination improve... but your upper body strength will go through the roof once you master this exercise.

If you want to learn more about the proven exercises and tested plan of progression that you can use to create broad, powerful shoulders at home, I recommend The Home Workout Plan.

Lesson Eight