I have a new article on Return of Kings about the military press and the push press, two exercises that will give you the big broad shoulders women adore and men are intimidated by.

(For some reason, they didn’t use this picture in the article, even though it confirms that I have a 205 pound overhead press. So, to prove my credentials, here it is).

The shoulders are often considered to be a short-hand for the masculine form in particular—and rightfully so for the simple fact that men do, on average, have broader shoulders than women. And the variety of aphorisms and folk wisdoms pertaining to the deltoids: “Carrying other people on your shoulders”, “Standing on the shoulders of giants”, and (obliquely) Atlas Shrugged allude to the nature of men to bear tremendous weights upon their mighty shoulders. Any cartoonist will differentiate males and females by giving the former a broad chest and shoulders.

A broad and powerful upper body is useful for a variety of tasks, not the least of which is lifting things over your head. While having strong shoulders will help you with all of your upper body exercises, I would argue that of the two main types of upper body press (bench and overhead and all their permutations), the overhead is the more practical and useful of the two.