Whether it’s moving furniture, carrying boxes, lifting groceries, or raking leaves, many of our daily activities rely on our shoulder muscles. When you throw a baseball, hit a serve in tennis, or swing a golf club, your shoulders play a big role in these movements.
Doing barbell overhead presses or front raises with dumbbells will, of course, tone these shoulder muscles. However, you don’t need to use weights to develop strong shoulders. You can turn to calisthenics exercises.
There are many great calisthenics shoulder exercises you can do either at home, in the gym, outdoors, or anywhere that is convenient for you.
Pushups
The standard pushup is an excellent way to build shoulder strength.
Start in a high plank position with your wrists directly under your shoulders. Bring your chest all the way to the floor and don’t flare your elbows out. Variations include incline pushups (hands on a bench), and decline pushups (feet on a bench). Beginners can do knee pushups or wall pushups.
Advanced versions include diamond pushups (hands close together), clap pushups (clap your hands on the way up), pushups by sliding one hand forward on the way down, Spiderman pushups (bring one knee to the outside and move it toward the elbow on the way down), and pushups with crossbody knee kicks (knee moves to the opposite elbow).
Elevated Pike Pushups
Put your feet on a bench or another elevated surface and get into a pike position (hips raised and hands as close to the bench as you can).
Keep your legs straight and be in as much of a vertical position as possible. To increase the challenge, increase the height of the elevated surface.
Back Bridge Pushups
For this calisthenics shoulder exercise, lie on your back with knees bent, and place your hands on the floor close to your ears with fingers pointing toward your feet.
Rise up as high as you can with arms and legs straight, and then return to the starting position.
Pullups
You want a full range of motion with the pullup, coming all the way up so your chin is above the bar and all the way down so your arms are straight.
If you’re new to this calisthenics shoulder exercise, use a pullup machine (the heavier the weight, the easier it is), or put a resistance band under a knee for assisted pullups.
Advanced moves include L-sit pullups (extend legs straight out in front with heels in line with the hips), archer pullups (extend one arm horizontally), muscle ups (pull yourself up over the bar), and pullups using gymnastics rings.
Dips
You can do dips with your hands on the floor or your hands on a bench. For both versions, it’s easier with your knees bent and harder with straight legs.
Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, put your shoulders back, bend your elbows and lower your hips on the way down, and extend all the way back up. Challenge yourself by doing dips using parallel bars. Keep your elbows tucked in close to your sides.
An advanced version is to do dips using rings. Make sure to lower far enough down so your shoulders go under the rings. A common mistake is to hunch forward, but you want to stay in an upright position.
Handstand
The handstand is another great calisthenics shoulder exercise. To fully engage your muscles, squeeze your glutes, keep your abs tight, and keep your legs straight. You want to push up through your shoulders once you kick up into a handstand.
For beginners, start by facing away from the wall and walk your feet up the wall. As you continue to practice, you’ll be able to walk your feet higher up the wall. The next step is to face the wall, kick your feet up on the wall, and extend into a handstand.
It takes a lot of practice, strength, and balance to do a handstand without needing a wall for assistance. Advanced versions include handstand on a bar, walking handstand, and handstand using rings.
Handstand Pushups
You want a full range of motion with the handstand pushup, lowering until the top of your head touches the floor, holding that position, and then extending back into the handstand.
You need strong wrists for this exercise, and you should be comfortable with holding a handstand before trying handstand pushups.
Wall Walk
Start in a handstand with your feet on the wall.
Walk your feet down the wall while walking your hands forward until you are close to parallel with the floor (as close to a high plank position as you can get), and then walk back up into a handstand. To maintain control of the movement, take small steps in both directions.
A variation of the wall walk is to remain in a full handstand position and move your hands side to side, keeping your feet on the wall.
Face Pulls
Another excellent calisthenics shoulder exercise is the face pull. Holding a pair of rings, lower yourself toward the floor with your knees bent, and pull yourself back up.
Keep your shoulders down and back. Your elbows should be slightly lower than your shoulders at the top position.
Don’t use momentum to pull yourself up, as this won’t properly work the shoulder muscles.
Box Walk
Start in a high plank position with your feet on a box or bench.
Walk your hands back into a pike position, and then walk your hands forward to return to high plank. An alternative to this calisthenics shoulder exercise is to do a high plank walk, moving your hands side to side.
Make sure not to raise your hips as you want to maintain proper high plank form.
Plank to Pushup
For this exercise, start in a low plank, push up into a high plank, lower back down into a low plank, and keep repeating the sequence.
Go slow with the movements to fully engage the core.
Frog Stand
This is an advanced calisthenics shoulder exercise.
Hold yourself up with straight arms, with your knees bent and to the outside of your elbows.
A progression is to extend from a frog stand into a handstand.