Are you curious about the Larry Wheels shoulder workout?

Do you wonder how Larry Wheels trains his front, side, and rear delts for size and strength?

Then you’ve come to the right place.

In this comprehensive guide, I will show you how to use the Larry Wheels shoulder workouts to take your training to the next level!

Introduction

• Part 1: Larry Wheels’ Bodybuilding Shoulder Workouts
• Part 2: Larry Wheels’ Powerlifting Shoulder Workouts

Larry Wheels is one of the strongest powerlifters in the world.

In 2020 he set the all-time powerlifting world record for the 308 pound weight class with a 870 pound squat, 660 pound bench press and an 855 pound deadlift.

Larry is a great powerlifter, but in my opinion his shoulder strength is even more impressive. Larry Wheels has the strongest shoulders in the entire world!

Here is a great video of lifting 515 pounds on the seated overhead press:

Wow! Even the world’s strongest man winners Eddie Hall and Hafthor Bjornsson can’t match this unbelievable feat of strength.

Larry Wheels trains for powerlifting and bodybuilding so he is constantly changing his shoulder workouts around.

When Larry is training for powerlifting he trains extremely heavy on different overhead pressing exercises to strengthen his shoulders for a huge bench press.

On the other hand, when Larry is training for bodybuilding he performs lots of different exercises for higher reps to really isolate all three heads of the deltoids and to stimulate as much muscular hypertrophy as possible.

Let’s take a closer look at some of these workouts.

Here is a typical powerlifting shoulder workout that Larry Wheels performs when he is getting ready for a powerlifting competition or even an upcoming strongman competition. Check it out: 

Larry Wheels’ Powerlifting Shoulder Workout #1

• Exercise #1: Seated barbell overhead press, 3 sets of 1 rep
• Exercise #2: Machine viking press, 3 sets of 10-15 reps
• Exercise #3: Seated DB overhead press, 3 sets of 10-15 reps
• Exercise #4: Standing DB lateral raise, 3 sets of 10-15 reps

Here is the training video for this workout:

This is another great video of Larry Wheels overhead pressing more than 500 pounds. What a freak of nature!

Larry starts his workout by working up to a 1-rep max on the seated barbell overhead press. Then he performs a variety of overhead pressing movements to overload his shoulders even more. Finally Larry finishes off with a few easy sets of seated dumbbell lateral raises.

Here is another one of Larry’s powerlifting-style shoulder workouts. For this workout Larry wanted to set a world record in the seated dumbbell overhead press. Check it out:

Larry Wheels Powerlifting Shoulder Workout #2

• Exercise #1: Seated DB overhead press, 1 set of 4 reps
• Exercise #2: Machine lateral raise (straight arm), 3 sets of 10-20 reps
• Exercise #3: Barbell upright row, 3 sets of 10-20 reps

Here is the training video for this workout:

For this workout Larry performs the seated dumbbell overhead press with 187 pound dumbbells. There’s no way Larry is human – he must be from another planet because this is absolutely ridiculous!

Larry finishes the workout with some easier isolation exercises for his shoulders. Larry is such a gifted athlete that he can sometimes just improvise during his workouts and perform whatever exercises he feels like that day after his main heavy sets.

I think the average trainee will have better success planning out all of their exercises and workouts in advance but this intuitive approach certainly works for Larry.

Now let’s look at some of Larry’s bodybuilding-style shoulder workouts.

Here is a shoulder workout where Larry pre-exhausts his delts with various isolation exercises before performing some moderately heavy machine overhead presses. Check it out:

Larry Wheels’ Bodybuilding Shoulder Workout #1

• Exercise #1: 45 degree chest supported rear DB fly, 3-4 sets of 10-15 reps
• Exercise #2: Reverse cable fly, 3-4 sets of 10-15 reps
• Exercise #3: Front barbell raise, 3-4 sets of 10-15 reps
• Exercise #4: Hammer strength overhead press, 3-4 sets of 10-15 reps
• Exercise #5: Standing DB lateral raise, 3-4 sets of 10-15 reps

Here is the training video for this workout:

For this workout, Larry pre-exhausts his rear delts with a couple of bodybuilding isolation exercises.

Larry says in the video that this has really helped him to bring up his lagging rear delts.

Then Larry preforms an isolation exercise for his front delts, a machine overhead pressing exercise and an isolation exercise for his side delts.

This is a very typical bodybuilding shoulder workout that you see a lot of professional bodybuilders use. Everything is performed for high reps with short rest periods to pump the shoulders full of blood and to stimulate as much muscular hypertrophy as possible.

Here is another bodybuilding shoulder workout that Larry Wheels performed with the world’s strongest man winner Eddie Hall. Check it out:

Larry Wheels bodybuilding Shoulder Workout #2

• Exercise #1: Seated DB overhead press, 1 set of 30 reps
• Exercise #2: Smith machine seated overhead press, 3 sets of 8-10 reps
• Exercise #3: Machine viking press, 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Exercise #4: Machine lateral raise (straight arm), 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Exercise #5: One-arm cable lateral raise, 3 sets of 12-15 reps

Here is the training video for this workout:

This workout is very similar to what Eddie Hall does in his strongman style shoulder workouts. First Larry performs one high rep set of dumbbell overhead presses to failure.

This is something that Eddie Hall does in almost all of his shoulder workouts to warm up his deltoids and to prepare for the rest of the workout.

Then Larry performs a variety of overhead pressing and lateral raise exercises to pump his shoulders up as much as possible.

As you can see Larry Wheels uses a variety of shoulder workouts depending on his goals.

If he is training for powerlifting, he trains as heavy as he can on 1-3 overhead pressing exercises to strengthen his shoulders as much as possible for a huge bench press.

On the other hand, if Larry is training for bodybuilding then he performs high-volume bodybuilding style workouts with lots of different exercises performed for 10+ reps per set.

Conclusion | The Larry Wheels Shoulder Workout!

If you want big, round shoulders then give some of Larry Wheels’ shoulder workouts a shot.

You may not dethrone Larry as the king of overhead pressing but these workouts may be just what you need to shock your shoulders into size and strength gains.

“The clock is ticking. Are you becoming the person you want to be?”

Thank you for reading and I wish you the best of luck on your strength training journey!