Car Drivers
The car driver exercise is a fantastic addition to your shoulder workout.
This isometric hold is a tool often used to burn out the shoulders towards the end of your workout.
Movement: Isolation
Targets: Shoulders
Required: Weight Plate
Optional: N/A
Car Drivers Form:
Stand upright while holding a plate in both hands at 3 and 9 oclock with palms facing each other.
Extend your arms and the plate straight out forward.
While holding the plate in front of your torso proceed to alternate turning the plate as far one way to the other as possible, as if you were steering a car.
Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
Common Car Drivers Mistakes
Not Hitting All Parts Of The Deltoid
Your shoulder is not just made up of one muscle, the shoulder is comprised of 3 ‘heads’, these are known as:
- The anterior deltoid (the front of your shoulder)
- The medial deltoid (the side of your shoulder)
- The posterior deltoid (the rear of your shoulder)
If you are not training all 3 heads you will not get round, full shoulders.
Shoulder training is based around 2 main movements, presses and raises, the traditional dumbbell and barbell presses are a great starting exercise for your shoulder routine as they are a compound exercise (and therefore hit all heads of the deltoid) we can then hone in on the anterior, medial and posterior heads individually through different variations of raises.
Bouncing The Weight
Your stance should be shoulder width and you should maintain a slight bend in your knee (I have seen quite a few people performing standing shoulder exercises with locked out knees, however for stability and reduced risk of injury a slightly bent knee is superior).
At the bottom of the repetition you pause for a split second before proceeding with the following rep – no bouncing.
Using A Partial Range Of Motion
Partial reps can be used to push yourself beyond your point of failure at the end of your set, however strict, full range of motion must be practiced first.
Poor Scheduling Of Your Shoulder Workout
I highly recommend having at least 1 day between your chest and shoulder workouts.
The flat barbell bench press, incline bench press and dips place a large amount of tension on the front deltoids (even though the chest is the primary muscle targeted during this exercise).
If you’re going straight from a heavy chest workout on Monday into a shoulder workout on Tuesday you won’t be getting the best bang for your buck out of your workout – your shoulders will be recovering and from my experience you won’t be able to lift anywhere near as heavy as if they were fresh.
Ongoing, excessive amounts of stress placed on the shoulders can result in a shoulder impingement which’ll have you out of performing the vast majority of upper body exercises for weeks if not months, not good.
If you’re strapped for time and can only train three times a week the push/pull/legs workout regime is an option which hits both chest and shoulders in the same (push) workout however if you’re able to train 5 days a week I recommend performing a split in the following order:
Chest
Back
Shoulders
Arms
Legs
(rest)
Repeat
Alternatively, through a leg or rest day between your chest and shoulder workouts.
Similar & Substitute Exercises
- Dumbbell One Arm Side Lateral Raise
- Dumbbell Front Raise
