Train with weights that allow you to complete 8-12 reps and in the meantime do plenty of pull ups – these will widen your back and contribute to your v-taper before your medial deltoids step up. We could add caveats to our statement that anyone can gain weight. As you can see, the shoulder is extremely complex, with a design that provides maximum mobility and range of motion. Her history also includes a right acromioclavicular joint separation many years ago, for which she was immobilized in a sling for several weeks with no further treatment. Very familiar with that, I was 5’11” and 115 pounds when I went into the military at 17. This lower-body emphasis is especially common with strength-training programs, as the main strength lifts are the squat, the deadlift, and the bench press. We’re able to design more optimized routines for different levels of lifters, starting points, and age. However, for those of us with shorter collarbones, the path there can see a little different. Nowadays, the “X-taper” physique is more popular with bodybuilders, where the lower body is supposed to be just as big as the upper body. For example, Shane added 12″ around his shoulders in two years while gaining around fifty pounds overall. This rotating motion will work your anterior deltoids (front shoulder muscles) and help create that important V-shape! Checking that study, it mentions the mean / SD clavicle length being 161 +- 11 mm, which are very small increments making it difficult to get the actual result if the starting / ending positions are slightly off. 2. Believe it or not, for better and worse, the vast majority of bulking programs aren’t designed to emphasize shoulder growth. Why twenty pounds? Sit with your back fully supported and hold the dumbbells at shoulder height with the palms facing forward. The largest of these shoulder muscles is the deltoid. Since our program isn’t designed for powerlifting or modern bodybuilding, it takes what we consider to be a more balanced approach, which means quite a bit more training volume for our upper bodies, which is actually where most of us need extra muscle the most. This means that if we’re eighteen or older, the only way to build broader shoulders is to gain muscle in our upper bodies. So if you’re wearing a size small right now, adding twenty pounds will get your t-shirt up to a medium. And given the fact that you, for example, were able to learn how to walk, you clearly have the ability to develop muscle size and strength in response to the activities you engage in. Bulking down, so to speak. If you want help building muscle, I’d highly recommend checking out all of our full Bony to Beastly Bulking Program. Bone structure is almost entirely determined by our genetics, and so there’s nothing that we can do to change it. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like. The shoulders are complex joints and highly vulnerable to injury. Plus, we'll put you on the Beastly newsletter so that you get all of our best information and offers. Keep in mind that these are just generalizations. And they look great because of what it signals: optimal shoulder health and strength. Shoulder stability One of the many remarkable features of the normal shoulder is that the glenohumeral joint (the ball and socket joint between the upper arm bone and shoulder blade) is very stable in spite of the vast range of motion available to the joint (see figure 1). To make a long story short, though, it can help to start with diagonal pressing variations, get strong at them, and then gradually work our way more vertical: Once we’re able to press weights overhead with a deep range of motion and good form, it becomes much easier to build broader shoulders.