The Rock Used This Workout to Build Massive Shoulders for ‘Black Adam'
Strength and conditioning coach Dave Rienzi helped Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson put on more lean muscle than he ever had before for his leading role in Black Adam, a physically arduous undertaking which the wrestler-turned-actor described as one of the hardest things he's ever done. Throughout his prep for the movie, Johnson shared glimpses of his epic Black Adam workouts, and now Rienzi is sharing the specific exercises that he programmed to target specific muscle groups.
Following on from a recent Instagram video where he broke down those arm day gains, Rienzi just dropped the full shoulder workout that he and Johnson used to build and maintain his huge, "cannonball-esque" superhero shoulders.
"What we were aiming for while filming was maintaining 90 percent of this peak look over a 5-month period," he says. "The commitment that it took for DJ to do that was on a whole other level."
Rienzi starts the workout with rear delt flies. In addition to targeting the delts, this also works the rhomboids, which is important to overall shoulder health. Because strict form here is so key, if you're new to the rear delt fly we'd recommend trying this on an incline bench rather than in the usual standing position. If this is a weak spot for you, don't be afraid to lead with it on shoulder day, as Rienzi is doing here.
On a couple of the exercises, Rienzi recommends lightening up on the weights to ensure that you can execute your reps—including static holds and slowed-down negatives—with the right level of control. This emphasis on quality of eccentric contraction as opposed to loading up the exercise has been evident in a number of Johnson's gym posts.
"During this part of training, I shifted focus to time under tension, pulling back from weights that were overly stressing his nervous system so DJ can perform while still maintaining that round, muscular look," explains Rienzi.
Here's the shoulder workout in full:
Reverse flys (4 sets of 12: 4 reps with 3-second negatives, 4 reps with 3-second static holds, 4 reps with traditional form)
Dumbbell bent over lateral raise (4 sets of 12 with 2-second static holds)
Cable single arm side lateral raise (4 sets of 8 with 3-second negatives)
Dumbbell side lateral raise (4 sets of 12 on each arm alternating with static holds)
Superset dumbbell overhead press and scaption raises (3 sets: 20 reps on press, 12 reps on raises with 2-second holds)
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