At this point, it’s important that you start practicing your posing if you haven’t already. That’s true whether you’re planning to compete or just take photos. In fact, if you’re planning to compete, you should have been practicing your posing from the beginning of Operation Aesthetic. First-time competitors often underestimate the challenge of posing on stage when they’re fully depleted.
Today, you should take a good look at all of your shoulder muscles. You can do this before, during, and after your shoulder workout. Are you seeing weaknesses in specific heads of your delts? If so, then you should work on detail and presentation of these muscles—you likely don’t have enough time left to bring up the mass of these muscles.
Now you’re looking for ways to improve the presentation of your weaknesses. You’ll only get better at this with future diets. Remember to record all of your observations in your journal. These notes will be very valuable as you progress in your bodybuilding career.
OPERATION AESTHETIC NOTES
*Lower the weights slowly for compound moves such as standing military presses. This will not only force your shoulders to work harder, but it will also help prevent injury as you get leaner, and potentially weaker. Your instinct will be to allow gravity to take over, but that’s a mistake.
*This workout hits all the muscles of the shoulders, relying on compound and isolation moves. You’ll get in some rear-delt work with cable upright rows, which I take much higher than many people do. Emphasize a contraction in those rear delts as well as your traps for that move.
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Early morning cardio
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1
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25 minutes
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Don’t think about it; just get to your cardio ASAP—you can shower and check your phone later.
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EXERCISE
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COMMENT
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Standing military press
Lower the weight slowly, and then explode upward stopping short of lockout.
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6 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15, 15 REPS
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One-arm cable lateral raise
Notice how I grab hold of the apparatus and lean away to get a greater range of motion in the middle head of the delts.
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5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
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Cable front raise
SUPERSET: Notice how I explode out of the bottom for both moves and then lower the weight slowly. We’re really working the negative portion on this cable superset, where we get constant tension for both moves.
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5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
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Cable upright row
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5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
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Smith machine overhead press
Really focus on the stretch and contraction in every rep. Don’t focus on the number of reps—you just want to feel your target muscles working.
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5 SETS / 12, 10, 7, 3, 15 REPS
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Dumbbell shrug
I like that 2-1-1 strategy for dumbbell shrugs. Two seconds to lower the weight, one second hold at the top, and then a more explosive 1-second raise.
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4 SETS / 12, 10, 8, 15 REPS |
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Post-Workout cardio
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1
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25 minutes
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Get this in any time of the day, but it’s best immediately after your weight-training workout.
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TIP: CreaClear® is a creatine supplement that helps you fuel workouts, including between-set recovery. CreaClear provides the nutrients that can help your body create ATP, the energy source that helps you perform more reps with heavy weights.
