ATHLEAN-X founder Jeff Cavaliere has been around the fitness space for years and continues to give back to fans in his spare time. In his latest YouTube video, shared on November 3, 2024, he broke down exercises that only require dumbbells for bigger, stronger, and healthier shoulders.
With over 13.9 million YouTube subscribers, Jeff Cavaliere is easily one of the most popular and listened-to fitness coaches. He implements a science-based approach backed up by years of experience not only testing himself under the pressure of weights but also thanks to his credentials as a fitness trainer.
He has carved out a successful career guiding high-profile athletes. He is the former head physical therapist and assistant strength coach to the New York Mets baseball team, revered for his knowledge of exercise mechanics and weightlifting.
Jeff Cavaliere Shares His ‘Go-To’ Dumbbell Only Exercises to Safely Build the Shoulders
Whether your goal is strength, power, hypertrophy, or injury prevention, Jeff Cavaliere provides exercises for each.
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“So what if you want to build bigger, stronger, healthier shoulders, and all you have to train with is some dumbbells? What would you do? Well, we need context.
In other words, are you training for power or are you training for strength or are you training for size or do you have a bad shoulder and you need a good exercise to get yourself back up and running again? Well, it doesn’t matter because I got all the scenarios covered for you.”
Strength
For strength, Jeff Cavaliere explains what movements work best.
“There’s different variations of the press and some are definitely better than the others. In other words, I wouldn’t recommend doing a seated dumbbell overhead press, instead, I want you to stand up,” said Cavaliere.
“There’s a variation that’s even better than the standing overhead press you see here. We’re talking about building overall maximum strength, just take one dumbbell at a time,” he shares. “When you just lift one dumbbell, you’re not worried about any core limitations or strength that are holding back your ability to press as much weight as possible.”
Favored Exercises:
- Standing overhead press (one dumbbell at a time)
- Dumbbell push press
- Dumbbell cheat lateral raise
Hypertrophy/Metabolic
Favored Exercises:
- Scoop press
- Dumbbell high pull
- Dumbbell 8s
- Dumbbell pressouts
- SFT (Sagittal, Frontal, Transverse) series
Stretch Hypertrophy
Cavaliere underscored the importance of overloading muscles in a stretched position.
“We still have one other way to do this. We know that there’s a lot of focus on stretch-driven hypertrophy. Taking a muscle into a stretched position and overloading it in that sense because we’re going to get that load plus tension that we know produces gains.”
Favored Exercises:
- Side lateral raises
- Stretch front raises
Total Body
If you’re short on time, Cavaliere has an option that effectively taxes the entire body, including the shoulders.
“Sometimes when we’re training our athletes we have to do something that’s a little bit more efficient in terms of time and we need exercises that do a little bit more than just train the shoulders but still have a heavy focus on building the shoulders. So these are more of our total body shoulder exercises.
Favored Exercises:
- Power clean overs
Building Up ‘Weak Links’
He also recommended facepulls as a valuable exercise.
“Even though this is a smaller exercise, it’s these small exercises that build up those weak links in the chain of the bigger exercises allowing you to do better on all the exercises I already showed you.”
Favored Exercises:
- Dumbbell facepulls (lying face down on bench)
No-Pain All-Gain Exercises
For those hoping to avoid injuries, he favors dumbbell hip huggers most.
“What do you do when you got to get someone back moving again and you can’t afford to fuck them up again? Well, we have our list of go-to exercises but to positively spin it better, I would call it the no-pain all-gain exercises.”
Favored Exercises:
- Dumbbell hip huggers
Rear Delts
Lastly, for effective rear delt work, he advocated for rear delt rows and dumbbell Urlachers.
“You really got to make sure you have extra work for the rear delt because it never gets enough,” adds Cavaliere. “The extension of the elbow back behind the body is what really lights up the rear delt.”
Preferred Exercises:
- Rear delt row
- Dumbbell Urlachers
“Those would be my go-to exercises.”
Whether you’re trying to safely build all three heads of the shoulder or need a ranked breakdown of the best chest exercises for growth, Cavaliere’s firm grasp on fitness makes his content highly sought after and packed with value. Give some of his exercises a try the next time you commit to shoulder training.
Watch the full video from the ATHLEAN-X YouTube channel below:
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