5 Effective Ways To Reduce Broad Shoulders For A Feminine Look 2024

Broad shoulders can give a strong and athletic appearance, but some women may feel uncomfortable with this look. Although certain factors are unmodifiable, there are strategies women can take to promote a narrower, more feminine appearance.

It’s pivotal to acknowledge your unique body shape and embrace the muscularity your genetics gave you. As an important disclaimer, you should never feel as though you need to shrink your body to appeal to societal standards.

This article outlines the top five strategies to reduce the appearance of broad shoulders. These strategies include topics such as exercise selection, frequency, intensity, and lifestyle factors. All strategies discussed are simple adjustments to your current fitness routine and do not require additional equipment or lifestyle modifications.

 Read on to learn more about how to reduce broad shoulders in females.

How To Reduce Broad Shoulders – Female

Listed below are the top five methods for reducing or minimizing the development of broad shoulders. 

Avoid Shoulder Isolation

Broad shoulders are often a result of muscle growth (hypertrophy) of the primary muscles of the shoulders. Muscle hypertrophy is achieved by utilizing the principle of progressive overload during resistance training. 

Progressive overload refers to incrementally increasing the difficulty of your exercises. This can be achieved by increasing the weight lifted, the amount of sets and reps, or the time spent under tension. By doing this, your muscles will continue to be adequately stimulated and thus will continue to grow. 

You can further increase this growth by selecting exercises that isolate the shoulder muscles. This is because these muscles are smaller and often play a minimal role in compound exercises that work multiple muscles.

While developed, strong shoulders are beneficial for overall health and longevity, many women may not consider this a physique goal. Thus, these women would be best suited to focus less on the isolation of the shoulder muscles. While some shoulder activation is important for total body muscularity and balance, this can be achieved through compound exercises. Some examples of compound exercises that work the shoulders to a lesser extent include rows and deadlifts. 

You can minimize the appearance of broad shoulders by choosing arm workouts for women who develop other upper body muscles. This will not shrink the shoulders, but it will promote the appearance of a more balanced physique.

Focus On Lower Body Hypertrophy

The legs and glutes (buttocks) make up a significant portion of the body’s musculature. Because of this, a developed lower body can help balance out the proportions of your physique. As discussed above, we can achieve this muscle growth through resistance training and progressive overload.

Focusing on building muscle in your lower half can shift the visual attention away from your shoulders. Selecting exercises like squats, deadlifts, and hip thrusts with hypertrophy programming is an underutilized strategy for balancing out your physique. 

When it comes to lower body training, women may be particularly focused on building muscle in their glute region. Muscle in this area of the body not only promotes a feminine appearance but also contributes to overall health. 

This is because the gluteus maximus is the largest muscle in our body and plays an enormous role in everyday movements. Thus, there is a threefold benefit to focusing on lower body hypertrophy — body symmetry, strength, and functionality. 

One exercise that is particularly beneficial for women looking to diminish the appearance of broad shoulders is the hip thrust. Arguably the king of glute-building exercises, the barbell hip thrust elicits significant glute muscle activation. A 2019 systematic review compared 5 different studies to determine the best exercise to grow glute muscles. The average muscle activation rate found during a barbell hip thrust was highly effective at 81%.

The step-up is another example of a highly effective exercise for lower body hypertrophy. A 2020 study showed an average glute muscle activation rate of 125% during a step-up, higher than any exercise tested. By selecting exercises like this, you can build up your lower body in a way that balances out your upper half.

Maintain A Healthy Weight

Weight loss is accomplished through creating a calorie deficit. This means that you eat fewer calories than you burn, leading to a net negative energy balance. You can also achieve a calorie deficit by burning extra calories during exercise. When this deficit occurs, your body utilizes stored fat for energy, leading to a reduction in body weight.

Many women who are struggling with their weight may feel that their shoulders are very broad. While this may be true to an extent, the width of our shoulders is also determined by the amount of body fat we carry. Carrying excess fat can lead to the appearance of a thicker upper body. Broad shoulders may appear more overt when there is excess fat surrounding the deltoids, biceps, triceps, back, and chest.

As your body fat percentage lowers, fat cells in these areas will also reduce in size. When this occurs, more defined muscles are often revealed. This is more likely to occur if the weight loss is accomplished sustainably. A high protein intake, resistance training, aerobic exercise, and adequate sleep are some strategies for sustainable weight loss.

While weight loss will not change your bone structure, if you are carrying excess fat, it can reduce broad shoulders. If you are not sure if you are a candidate for weight loss it is best to seek the guidance of a medical professional. A registered dietitian or doctor is an excellent place to start.

Use Lighter Weights And Perform Higher Reps

In addition to selecting certain exercises, we can also manipulate the weight or rep range to achieve our physique goals. This is a concept known as the repetition continuum. There are three different pillars of the repetition continuum — strength, hypertrophy, and muscular endurance. 

The first pillar is strength, and this focuses on lower repetition ranges and heavier weights to promote optimal strength. Hypertrophy training consists of moderate repetitions and moderate weights to promote muscle gain. 

The final pillar is muscular endurance, which is the focus of this section. Muscular endurance focuses on high repetition ranges and lower weights. This promotes conditioning and definition without significantly increasing muscle size. 

Those seeking to reduce broad shoulders should complete upper body exercises with a weight and repetition range conducive to endurance. To accomplish this, select a weight that you can lift for 15 repetitions or more. Specifically, you want to focus on choosing a weight that is below 60% of your 1 repetition max (1RM). 

Your 1 repetition max refers to the maximum amount of weight you can lift with proper form for one rep. For example, if your shoulder press 1RM is 50 pounds, select a weight that is less than 30 pounds. By doing this, you can still exercise your shoulders without significantly increasing the width.

Training for muscular endurance involves a lot of time under tension. This may lead to muscle soreness. To help combat soreness and stretch out those muscles, incorporate shoulder mobility exercises into your workouts. These stretches do not involve any weight lifting and thus, will not contribute to any muscle gain in your shoulders.

Reduce Shoulder Training Frequency

Another key component of muscular development is training frequency. Maximal muscle gains are best achieved by working a muscle group at least two times per week. With this knowledge, you can adapt your shoulder training frequency to support your goals.

Avoiding further muscle development in the shoulders does not mean you should avoid training them altogether. Your shoulder muscles are imperative for completing everyday activities such as getting dressed and carrying objects. To keep your muscles functional while preventing excessive gain, opt to complete shoulder exercises once per week. 

Program shoulder exercises for women into your workout split once per week. As the shoulder muscles are smaller and require less stimuli, you can also add these exercises to another workout. Complete them after your more taxing compound movements and before your mobility and stretching work.

Anatomy Of The Shoulder 

The shoulders connect the arm to the trunk. Consisting of muscles, bones, joints, tendons, and ligaments, this region plays an extensive role in upper body movement.

The shoulders are home to the most mobile joint in the human body, the glenohumeral joint. This is where the scapula (shoulder blade) and the humerus (upper arm bone) connect. 

Surrounding the glenohumeral joint are the primary muscles of the shoulders: the deltoid and rotator cuff. These muscles are further divided into parts. 

The deltoids have three distinct heads — the anterior (front), lateral (side), and posterior (back). The primary role of the deltoids is to lift and rotate the arm. 

The rotator cuff is a group of muscles — the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis. The primary role of the rotator cuffs is to stabilize the shoulder joint. They also help with arm rotation and elevation.

All of the components of the shoulders allow for extensive arm movement across a wide range of motion. The shoulders can move the arm across all three planes of the body. This means that the shoulders can bend, straighten, lift, lower, and rotate the arms.

Anterior Deltoid

Muscles located at the front of your shoulder region

Lateral Deltoid

Muscles located at the side of your shoulder which gives your shoulders a rounded appearance.

Posterior Deltoid

Muscles located at the back of your shoulder. Helps with posture.

Teres Minor

Small muscle at the back of your shoulder blade.

Infraspinatus

Triangular muscle covering the back of your shoulder blade.

What Is Considered Broad? 

There is no universally accepted definition for broad shoulders. This is because the appearance of broad shoulders is dependent on the rest of the body proportions. For example, women with overtly feminine features may appear to have narrower shoulders due to wider hips and breasts. On the contrary, less curaveous, more athletic women may appear to have broader shoulders.

The average shoulder width for American women is around 40 inches, but this differs in other parts of the world. For example, East Asian women possess smaller shoulder anatomy compared to North American women.

When comparing the two genders, men possess wider and thicker shoulders than women.

What Causes Broad Shoulders?

As discussed above, genetics and body proportions will play a large role in the visual appearance of the shoulders. While you cannot change your genetics, there are ways to sculpt your body to appear more proportional. 

Other factors that can lead to broad shoulders include muscle hypertrophy, playing sports, and testosterone levels. 

Selecting exercises that isolate the shoulders, such as lateral and front raises, have the potential to elicit muscle growth. This can lead to thicker shoulder muscles, which contribute to a broader appearance. 

Participating in athletic sports also may increase shoulder width. Similar to shoulder isolation exercises, certain sports may lead to muscle growth in this region of the body. Sports that involve throwing, such as baseball and softball, produce significant shoulder muscle activation.

Lastly, hormones such as testosterone can play a role in the ability to grow bigger, wider muscles. Those with high levels of testosterone, such as men, are more likely to develop wide shoulders. This is because testosterone helps the body to create and repair muscle tissue.

Conclusion

Having broad shoulders is often due to a combination of genetics and muscle growth. Those who participate in shoulder isolation exercises and sports that involve throwing are most susceptible to developing broad shoulders. 

While broad shoulders provide a strong and athletic look, many women may feel uncomfortable in this type of body. There are some strategies we can take to reduce the appearance of broad shoulders without sacrificing health and muscular balance.

It’s important to remember that everybody is uniquely beautiful in its own way. 

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