Dwight Freeney's Shoulder Workout

June 10, 2009

In this football strength training video, Indianapolis Colts Pro Bowl D-End Dwight Freeney performs the Three-Way shoulder circuit as part of his upper body strength and power workout during the NFL off-season.

TRANSCRIPT

William Hicks: Lateral front raise, posterior raise, just trying to train all three heads of the deltoid, basically building some armor around the shoulder joint to keep it healthy and that's more of just an injury prevention body building movement than a power output movement. Lateral raises you want to make sure you work the medial belt. So you've got to keep the elbow a little bit higher than the wrist, you don't turn it into a fly.

We do one that's just a regular front raise and then we'll do the front raise with movement, again because the arms are used independently we want to put him in a situation where he wants to pull, keeping the elbow high, keeping the shoulders stable and letting it down.

Then posterior, which is a little bit neglected we do by elbows squeezing together, squeezing the shoulder plates together in the back. It's hard to hurt anything in here. Closer you are to the belly button the stronger you are than farther away. We want to get him in that punch position with a light weight, if he ever gets his arm away from him it's not going to pop on him; he's got the strength enough to bring it back.

By doing that shoulder circuit, the posterior, medial and anterior, hopefully you build a cap around the shoulder girdle. Hopefully we put enough armor around the shoulder girdle that the impact he's going to generate from legs, and hips and core development, and strength and power we've gained, that the impact will be lessened because he's got enough muscle tissue built around the shoulder. Three sets of eight.

For more with Dwight Freeney, check out his Workout Overview