“The Austrian Oak” likes the 10 to 15 rep range for the deltoids.
Building your shoulders and arms offers a multitude of benefits. These include improved posture, increased metabolism, and a stronger core. Arm and shoulder growth means a more confident stance when you walk in a room. So how about picking up some tips from a Ronnie Coleman and Arnold Schwarzenegger arm and shoulder workout? These two bodybuilding legends recently linked up for some workouts and shared them on Instagram.
There are lots of shoulder and arm exercises that you can choose from to train your upper body. With most, doing three to five sets of about 12 to 15 reps is sufficient.
“Ronnie Coleman: How many reps are we doing?
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Probably doing around 10-15… Look at those deltoids, they are pumping up while you’re moving. I can see you getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”
Check out this post for a breakdown of how far these legends have come, their arm and shoulder routines, and more.
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Two Bodybuilding Legends
You can’t bring up bodybuilding in a conversation without mentioning the legends Ronnie Coleman and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Between them both, they have 15 Mr. Olympia titles! Although fierce competitors, they both respect each other.
Ronnie Coleman
| Full Name: Ronnie Coleman (Men’s Open Bodybuilder) | ||
| Weight | Height | Date Of Birth |
| 297 lbs | 5’11″ | 5/13/1964 |
| Division | Era | Nationality |
| Men’s Open | 1990s, 2000s | American |
Ronnie Coleman rose to prominence while dominating the Men’s Open in the 1990s. His insane physique and numerous feats of strength proved him to be a formidable champion. He won Mr. Olympia eight consecutive times and has an impact on this sport that you can still feel today. In 2001, Ronnie Coleman became the only bodybuilder to win the Arnold Classic and Mr. Olympia in the same year.
Despite serious injuries that have affected his mobility and put him on stem cell therapy, Coleman still works out. He admires other greats like Jay Cutler and, in this collaboration, helps to push Schwarzenegger to his limits. Many also consider Ronnie Coleman the strongest bodybuilder of all time — he has a personal squat and deadlift record of 800 lbs for two reps each.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
| Full Name: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Golden Era Bodybuilder) | ||
| Weight | Height | Date Of Birth |
| 235 lbs | 6’2″ | 7/30/1947 |
| Division | Era | Nationality |
| Bodybuilding | 1960, 1970, 1980 | Austrian |
Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t need much introduction, with the Arnold Classic named after him. “The Austrian Oak” is a seven-time Mr. Olympia winner holding the coveted title from 1970 to 1975, then announcing his retirement from the sport to focus on his acting career. In 1980 while preparing for his main role in Conan, Schwarzenegger came out of retirement, competed for Mr. Olympia, and again won before retiring again.
At the height of his bodybuilding career, Arnold Schwarzenegger exercised for at least two hours a day and even had an exercise named after him: The Arnold Press. However, earlier this year, he shared that exercising when you’ve crossed the line of 70 years is a bit different, and he has to be careful and more efficient with his routines. Good for us because you can trust the exercises here to go straight to the point to build muscle without BS as long as you use the proper form. So let’s take a look at them.
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Ronnie Coleman and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Arm and Shoulder Workout
| Exercises |
| Machine Lateral Raise |
| Machine Preacher Curl |
| Machine Shoulder Press |
Ronnie Coleman takes a pre-workout supplement before starting their arm and shoulder workouts. This study shows pre-workout supplements significantly improve upper-body and lower body strength and power while exercising (1). Both men then proceeded to do the following machine exercises.
Machine Lateral Raise
The machine lateral raise is an isolation exercise that targets your shoulders. This exercise focuses on your lateral delts and recruits your anterior delts to help give your shoulders symmetry and balance. Since this is a single joint (isolation) exercise, staying in the 8 to 12-rep range will help optimize muscle growth in your shoulders (2).
Doing machine lateral raises isolates your delts better than doing these raises with dumbbells. It also helps to eliminate cheating using momentum and keeps the tension on your muscles throughout the entire range of motion. Be sure to pause at the top of the movement, and don’t allow the weight stack at the bottom to optimize your muscle fiber recruitment.
Machine Preacher Curl
The next Coleman and Schwarzenegger movement we’ll be looking at is machine preacher curls. This exercise is great for the arms and targets the brachioradialis, brachialis, and biceps brachii. If you want bigger biceps, then this exercise is one you should add to your list.
Preacher curls are great for the biceps because they remove the momentum of doing regular curls. This better isolates your biceps leading to more efficient gains. Machine preacher curls have the added benefit of challenging your muscles for the entire range of motion due to the decline it requires your biceps to lie.
Machine Shoulder Press
The last exercise in their arm workout we see Ronnie Coleman and Arnold Schwarzenegger do is the machine shoulder press. This exercise targets your delts, triceps, traps, and upper chest. This compound exercise primarily works your lateral and anterior delts in the shoulders.
One advantage of the machine shoulder press is that the seated position zones in on your shoulders. You don’t need to compensate for balance using your core as you would when doing the standing overhead press. Research shows that using a stable implement when doing the overhead press increases activity and growth in the anterior delts (3).
Recently, Ronnie Coleman uploaded the full workout to his YouTube, including the movement machine tricep press.
You can watch Ronnie Coleman’s and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s full arm and shoulder workout below:
You also can check out the time that Generation Iron was able to profile the legendary Ronnie Coleman for the movie Ronnie Coleman: The King. Check out the trailer below:
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References
- Kaczka, P., Batra, A., Kubicka, K., Maciejczyk, M., Rzeszutko-Bełzowska, A., Pezdan-Śliż, I., Michałowska-Sawczyn, M., Przydział, M., Płonka, A., Cięszczyk, P., Humińska-Lisowska, K., & Zając, T. (2020). Effects of Pre-Workout Multi-Ingredient Supplement on Anaerobic Performance: Randomized Double-Blind Crossover Study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(21), 8262. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17218262
- Schoenfeld, B. J., Grgic, J., Van Every, D. W., & Plotkin, D. L. (2021). Loading Recommendations for Muscle Strength, Hypertrophy, and Local Endurance: A Re-Examination of the Repetition Continuum. Sports (Basel, Switzerland), 9(2), 32. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports9020032
- Dicus, J. R., Holmstrup, M. E., Shuler, K. T., Rice, T. T., Raybuck, S. D., & Siddons, C. A. (2018). Stability of Resistance Training Implement alters EMG Activity during the Overhead Press. International journal of exercise science, 11(1), 708–716.
