Muscle Fitness Muscle & Fitness UK - April 2018 | Page 82

HERS
believing they’ll loose
their femininity. Well
firstly, let me make one
thing clear: No one but no one is going
to restrict my potential by telling me
what feminine looks like! Be assured by
this; if you’re a drug-free female then
your body can only respond to training
within your natural capacity to recover
as a female, therefore you are feminine
by definition! And if you want to
emphasise your waist and have a
healthy looking, strong, balanced
physique and posture then a well-
designed upper body programme
is a must.
Great posture requires balance
between the front and the back of
your body. This will help you to avoid
getting a hunched over posture that
happens when your front and middle
delts and chest are worked way more
than your rear delts and back. I’ve
learned the hard way having had
persistent shoulder pain for 18 months
that prevented me training upper body
completely. The culprit? Following
some questionable advice on training
shoulders. You may have heard me say
before that I’m completely self-
coached; but I believe the key to
progress is to continually develop your
knowledge and understanding. Like
anything you want to be good at ‘there
are levels to this,’ and when I was
awarded my IFBB Pro Card in October
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MUSCLE & FITNESS / APRIL 2018
2014 I knew I had to step up my game
which required a step up in knowledge,
so I accepted the offer of a shoulder
session with another coach which
unfortunately was lacking in a few
areas. Now I’m not comfortable with
blame; I believe another key to
progress is not dwelling on negatives,
learning from good and bad and
moving forwards. So that said, I accept
full responsibility for my set back
because ultimately the responsibility,
and the consequences of my develop-
ment lies with me. This article explains
what I learned from this to help you
avoid the setbacks I experienced.
A good place to start when it comes
to developing a balanced physique is
to have a basic understanding of the
muscle groups and which exercises hit
them best:
Shoulders (Deltoids)
Anterior/ Front Head
Location: Front of the shoulder
Exercise example: Barbell Shoulder
Press
Medial/Middle Head
Location: Middle/Side of the shoulder
Exercise example: Dumbbell Side
Lateral raise
Posterior/Rear Head
Location: Back/rear of the shoulder
Exercise example: Seated bent-over
lateral raise
The shoulders are a complex joint
and making sure they are developed in
a balanced way will not only reduce