Serious and Silliness Bodybuilding · John Livia

Anabolic Academy: How to get boulder shoulders

·38 min·2 clips
He says 70- to 80-pound side laterals with strict form were part of his shoulder growth work.
1. Serious and Silliness Bodybuilding focuses on “boulder shoulders” and shoulder training for bodybuilding stage shape. 2. The hosts are Jason Arntz’s friend and a bodybuilding speaker who matters because he has trained shoulders for years and says Jason had “great shoulders.” 3. The episode asks which shoulder exercises actually build the capped look, especially for someone who says shoulders never came easily. 4. Jason Arntz is used as a reference point because he was “breaking the top five at the Olympia in 202” and later competed in 212. 5. The speaker says he wanted to learn from Jason because Jason’s shoulders were one of his best body parts and he had been a strong bodybuilder in his prime. 6. The conversation turns to genetics, with the speaker explaining that he has a “wide clavicle” and that skeletal width changes how shoulder size looks. 7. He gives Dennis Wolfe, Andrew Jack, Samson, and Lee Priest as examples of different frame types and shoulder presentation. 8. The central training point is that rear delts and side delts matter more than just big front delts or heavy overhead pressing. 9. He says a shoulder day should include rear delt machine work, bent-over laterals, cable laterals, and multiple sets before moving to presses. 10. He describes using 150-pound dumbbells for presses after doing behind-the-neck presses and rear-delt work. 11. One specific routine he gives starts with rear delts, then side laterals, then front presses, with “six to eight sets for just rear delts alone.” 12. He says he would do side laterals with 70- or 80-pound dumbbells while keeping “perfect form” and no momentum. 13. The speaker contrasts that with lower-weight drop sets using 40s, 30s, 20s, and 10s, which he says he had used for a long time. 14. He describes changing his approach after training in Staten Island at Rare Breed Gym and choosing heavier laterals with 40s and 50s. 15. He says shoulder training needed both heavy work and volume, or he would never see progress in that body part. 16. The talk includes a John Meadows-style rear-delt sequence on an incline bench with swimming motions, W raises, and hanging swings to failure. 17. The tone is conversational and technical, with jokes, sponsor reads, and detailed training back-and-forth. 18. The format is a two-person gym discussion that moves between exercise selection, anatomy, and brand mentions like I Prevail Subs. 19. Listeners who train bodybuilding shoulders and like exercise detail would likely enjoy this episode. 20. Listeners who want a tight, non-training conversation would probably skip it.
Listen to the show on