Are you curious about Bradley Martyn’s shoulder workouts? Are you looking for a simple, step-by-step guide that shows you exactly how he trains for a huge overhead press and massive delts? Then you’ve come to the right place.
In this comprehensive guide, I will teach you exactly how Bradley Martyn organizes his shoulder workouts to build size and strength.
Bradley Martyn Stats
- Age: 32 years old
- Height: 6 foot 3 inches
- Weight: 245 pounds
- Body fat: About 10%
Bradley Martyn is known for his incredible shoulder development. He can overhead press hundreds of pounds and has fully developed front, side and rear delts. So how does he train his shoulders?
Bradley Martyn trains his shoulders once per week using 4-6 different exercises per workout.
He likes to perform one heavy overhead pressing movement and 3-5 isolation exercises for his front, side and rear delts. He says this is one of the best ways to train if you want to build size and strength at the same time.
Here is one of Bradley Martyn’s favorite powerbuilding style shoulder workouts. Check it out:
Bradley Martyn Shoulder Workout #1
- Exercise #1: Hammer strength overhead press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #2: Seated DB overhead press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #3: Seated DB lateral raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #4: Reverse grip barbell overhead press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #5: Bent over rear delt DB flys, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
Here is the training video:
This is a perfect example of how Bradley Martyn likes to organize his shoulder workouts. He starts the workout with a few heavy sets on an overhead pressing exercise. He often uses barbells or dumbbells for his first exercise, but today he went with the hammer strength shoulder press.
Bradley says he likes this particular machine because both of your arms are working independent of each other. This is important for Bradley, because he sometimes gets pain in his shoulders when he is doing other machine exercises.
“The reason I like this exercise first is I can load a decent amount of weight. It’s a great warm up exercise for people with shoulder pain.
Some people have imbalances where one side is stronger than the other. Or people have an injury on one side.
I think the machine press, the cool thing about this machine is it’s unilateral, so both sides are moving independently.”
Next Bradley Martyn performed a variety of compound and isolation exercises to hit his front, side and rear delts.
During the workout Bradley gives some great advice on how to perform each exercise correctly for the best possible results. For example, here is Bradley talking about how to isolate your rear delts on the bent over rear delt dumbbell fly:
“At the bottom I was able to get a good range of motion and a good stretch. When you’re training rear delts, it’s not about lifting heavy weights.
The minute you pick up heavy weights you’re going to start involving your lats, traps and other muscles.
Your rear delts are a tiny muscle vs your traps which are huge. If you want that 3-D pop, that 3-D width, you can’t fuck your rear delts over by not training them properly.”
Here is another one of Bradley Martyn’s high-volume shoulder workouts that you can try. Check it out:
Bradley Martyn Shoulder Workout #2
- Exercise #1: Seated DB overhead press, 5 sets of 10-15 reps
- Exercise #2: Standing barbell upright row, 5 sets of 10-15 reps
- Exercise #3: Standing DB lateral raise, 5 sets of 15-25 reps
- Exercise #4: Standing cable rope face pull, 5 sets of 10-15 reps
- Exercise #5: Standing barbell shrugs, 5 sets of 10-15 reps
Here is the training video:
This is more of a typical bodybuilding style shoulder workout.
First Bradley performs a few moderately heavy sets on the seated dumbbell overhead press. After that Bradley performs a variety of isolation exercises for his front, side and rear delts.
During the workout Bradley says that he has some exercises that he almost always performs in all of his shoulder workouts. For example, he almost always includes some type of lateral raise to hit his side delts.
“I always include side laterals in my shoulder routines. The key with this exercise is when you’re grabbing the dumbbells, you don’t want to grab the dumbbell super tight.
You almost want the dumbbell hanging in your hand. You’re going to be able to put more emphasis on your shoulders.”
Bradley Martyn also performs some barbell shrugs at the end of this workout.
He says the shoulders are worked your shoulder exercises, such as shoulder presses and lateral raises, so it makes sense to train them on your shoulder day.
Here is another one of Bradley Martyn’s shoulder workouts that you can try. Check it out:
Bradley Martyn Shoulder Workout #2
- Exercise #1: Standing cable rope face pulls, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #2: Reverse pec dec, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #3: Seated DB overhead press, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #4: Standing DB lateral raise, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
- Exercise #5: Standing DB shrugs, 4 sets of 8-15 reps
Here is the training video:
For this shoulder workout Bradley Martyn used the pre-exhaust method.
He performed different isolation exercises for his side and rear delts first in his routine. Then, after his shoulders were already pre-exhausted he went and performed his heavy overhead pressing movement for the day.
This is a strategy that many bodybuilding coaches like John Meadows use because it decreases your risk of injury and gives you a better mind-muscle connection during your heavy pressing exercise.
“I always focus on activating my shoulders with isolation exercises before moving onto any shoulder presses.
If the shelf is not warmed up, there’s not good enough blood flow, then you’ll get into some exercises and realize that you are falling out of your groove.”
Towards the end of the workout Bradley throws in some heavy shrugs to overload his traps. He says that shrugs are an underrated exercise, and you can handle a lot more weight than you think on this exercise.
“The reason why is because you’re probably a lot stronger than you think. You can handle a lot of weight on shrugs. The hardest part about heavy shrugs is going to be your grip.
No, I’m not necessarily trying to work my grip strength. But don’t underestimate your ability to shrug because you can handle more weight than you think you can.”
Many legendary bodybuilders such as Dorian Yates performed shrugs at the end of their shoulder routine, so maybe Bradley Martyn is onto something here?
Verdict | The Bradley Martyn Shoulder Workout!
Bradley Martyn trains his shoulders using a simple but effective training program.
He usually starts his shoulder workout with one heavy overhead pressing exercise, such as the seated dumbbell overhead press, and then performs different isolation exercises for his front, side and rear delts.
This is a great way to train if you are looking to build size and strength at the same time.
If you are looking for a great shoulder training program then you have to give the Bradley Martyn shoulder workouts a shot. They may be just what you need to take your training to the next level.
“What I like is the journey, the year-round struggle to improve.”
Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of luck on your strength training journey!