Strong Magazine Women's Edition

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Strong November 2021

Women

Julia Rene

THE 24-yEAR OLD FEMALE BODYBUILDER INSPIRING OTHER WOMEN THROUGH HER “BUFF BABE ACADEMY”

3 exercises for Bolder shoulders with Kourtney Thomas

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Boulder shoulders? Yes, please! Upper body too big? No such thing!

For me, the whole process became less about shaping my muscles, and more about shaping my life. When I eased up on the negative thoughts toward my big shoulders, I started to see them, and myself, very differently.

Suddenly, my shoulders were beautiful. Big, round, shapely, strong, bold – a symbol and a statement of everything I had become as a woman.

thought I wanted it the least, was a journey in self-exploration. Not only did I have to work harder than I ever had before in the gym, I also ended up working harder than I ever imagined on introspection and my emotional connections to both my physical body and how it was taking up space in the world. I went from accepting my place as a small person to creating my place as a bigger one.

And really, that’s been the biggest lesson that has shaped so much of my life for the past couple of years, and where my favorite saying — “Big arms, Big life!” — came from. Working hard to build muscle physically led to working hard to build strength mentally and emotionally, which led to building exactly what I wanted for myself in all aspects of life.

Boulder shoulders led to a bolder me.

Building boulder shoulders — or frankly, bolder any body part — is a deliberate exercise in diligence, patience, and hard work. My four favorite shoulder exercises will go a long way in building that boldness you’re after.

These three moves as a workout are meant to build the shoulders in an all-around fashion — overall development, width, and roundness. You can implement them as a standalone workout to really pump up the shoulders and encourage growth, or you can add one or two to an existing workout to give your shoulders a little extra attention.

All that being said, the shoulders are a very complex part of the body, consisting of many muscles, and joints that move in many ways. The shoulder complex can be a common place for injuries, so be mindful of your movement when adding in new shoulder work, or increasing volume. Start lighter than you think, always use control, and never work through pain.

Speaking of the many muscles of the shoulder complex, training shoulders is unique in that there are multiple ways in which we can shape them. The main muscles that create that big, round, boulder shoulder look are the deltoids, which consist of the front, side, and rear heads. Everyone’s anatomy is a little different, but in general, making sure to hit each of the heads of the

1. Arnold Press

Yes, named after that famous Arnold — is a great move for overall shoulder development, especially targeting the front and side heads of the deltoids, with a great range of motion. In this workout, we’ll use the Arnold Press as a movement to create a bit more strength and power in the shoulders before moving on to some higher repetition, “pump” style training to encourage size and shape. We’ll do this exercise seated to allow for heavy focus on the shoulders with little room for cheating.

How to do it: Sit on a chair or bench, preferably with your back supported. Grab your dumbbells, and lift them onto your knees. Start by bringing the dumbbells up to a curl position in front of your shoulders, with palms facing in. From there, start to press the dumbbells overhead, while rotating your palms around and out. When you reach the top of your overhead press, your palms should be facing away from you. Reverse the movement, rotating your palms back in as you lower the dumbbells back down to the starting position.

2. Lateral Raise

The Lateral Raise is a classic shoulder exercise that targets the side delts intensely, with some front delt action as well. And it’s great for building shoulder width. Sometimes you’ll see this movement with a slightly heavier weight and a good bit of “body English,” but I like it with a weight you can handle under total control.

How to do it: Standing in a strong athletic position, with feet about hip distance apart, core tight, and knees slightly bent, grab your dumbbells and hold them at your sides. With a slight bend in the elbow, raise the dumbbells out to your sides, just slightly in front of your body. Stop when the dumbbells get to shoulder height, then slowly lower back down to the starting position.

3. Front Raise

The Front Raise is *ahem* a movement that targets the front delts, giving the shoulders size and shape as soon as you lay eyes on them. There are many ways to do it, but I like to do it seated, all reps on one arm, to really isolate one side at a time without any swinging whatsoever. The seated position itself helps with that isolation too.

How to do it: Sit on a chair or bench, preferably with your back supported. Start by holding your dumbbells down at your sides, palms facing behind you.

With a slight bend in the elbow, raise one arm up until the dumbbell reaches shoulder height. Slowly lower it back down to the starting position under control, repeating all reps on that side before switching to the other side.

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Q&A

honestly, right now my main focus is the Olympic Games and then go around the U.S. with all the girls and do that thirty-six city tour and then afterwards, I’m not

so sure because [my coaches] Cecile and Laurent [Landi] are

Question: How are you feeling about your prep in this road to Tokyo?

Simone: Right now, you know, we’re four months out. I’m feeling us for this moment. So, I’m just super excited for the journey.

Q: What has it taken to get yourself back into for lack of a better term ‘Games mode after a one-year postponement.

specialist and coming back [for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games].

Q: What went into your decision - I know it was hard to wait another year - what were the pros and cons as you pondered keeping training?

Simone: Well, there were... I feel like there were pros and cons to both of them. But the main thing was just like l trying to stay

year, it’s another year on the body. It’s just a lot to think about, but

Simone: Yes, it’s been tough. But during out time off, we still did Zoom workouts with our coaches, so we were still engaged.

then at the end of the day, it’s like we worked so hard. We’re not

As soon as we got back into the gym, it was kind of like full speed again to try and get ready for this year’s Games. It’s been

now. So, we’re going to take a little bit of a break. And we did. We

gym. And once we did that, we still were doing one workout a day

athleticism this year at the Games.

before we could go back to two workouts and that honestly kind

Q: We’re quickly approaching the 100 day out mark [to the start of the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021]. In the mind of an athlete... does that mean something special or is it on your calendar just another day on the schedule?

Simone: It’s crazy because to think about 100 days out, it is crazy. But then again, for us, it’s just another day in training, one day closer. But 100 days still sounds so far away, but like three, four months sounds sooner. So, it’s just so crazy, how you put it.

of helped keep my spirit up and think that it was going to be OK.

but it’s been my goal for a while. And I wasn’t ready to hang that up just because of the quarantine and the postponement.

Q: There’s a lot of G.O.A.T. discussion these days and I wanted to know where you think you placed in it and if it bugs you when you’re not included in the discussion?

me is when they don’t include women, because then again, I feel

-

like it’s a little bit sexist because we worked so hard to put our

irritating. But other than that, I feel like maybe for gymnastics I am

after this Olympics?

.

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