I can be of service here.

Delts are a rather important part of the physique, perhaps somewhat because of the fact that they’re the biggest muscles in the upper body. They may not seem like the biggest at first glance, but that’s because they’re roughly in the shape of a sphere — the shape with the largest volume (and mass) per unit surface area.

Here are the priorities when it comes to maximizing delt growth:

1. Lots of exercise variety — meaningfully different lifts, to ensure each and every fiber of the delt is activated maximally with the best leverage with at least 1 lift, again for every fiber. I’ll list some staples later in this comment.

2. Ensure frequency per each of these lifts is no less often than every 4-5 days. Every 2-5 days frequency. The most versatile and effective split in my experience is: A/B full body, either every other day or on 3 nonconsecutive days/week — if MWF, you can do an additional day, but make it Saturday rather than Sunday, such that all 3 main weekly training sessions are preceded by a rest day (that significantly assists progress, especially as you get more advanced).

3. Train in the 3-15 rep range at all times. Even if you’re doing a lift that favors high reps due to its resistance curve, such as standing side lateral raises (preferably bent forward slightly, btw), still use a weight that has you failing full reps by (just for instance) rep 10 or so, and finish the set with partials, but don’t go higher than 14-15 reps (even counting each partial as 1 rep) — if it felt like you had more reasonably worthwhile partials left in the tank by the time you reached rep 14-15, then you went with too light of a load. The advent of staying under the 15 rep range on all (not just most) sets was the paramount cause of me getting past my last and final true plateau of my advanced lifting career — learn from my experience with trial and error or at least put a pin in it for later, while you’re undergoing the same transformation and learning as me.

Try not to exceed about 1 set per day (as in about 7 weekly, for each muscle fiber), as that’s the recovery rate of most muscles on average by the time you’re advanced (beginners and to some extent intermediates can recover from significantly more sets than that though, not that they should necessarily push it), if we’re talking about very hard, effective, hypertrophic sets. You can exceed the recovery rate, but it requires intermittent deloads, which waste time and progress.

As long as frequency is sufficient (no less frequent than every 4-5 days), and intensity is sufficient (either 0RIR, to failure, or beyond failure for 7-15 rep sets; 0-2RIR if working with 7RM or heavier on 3-7 rep sets) there’s actually no such thing as too few sets, but it is very possible to do too many. Significantly lower volume than you can recover from will, however, result in slower progress than the progress you’d get from just below the volume you can indefinitely recover from… so the sweet spot will likely be about 6 sets a week per muscle fiber, however this doesn’t take into account overlap, so you can do even less. All this to say I highly recommend always doing 1-2 work sets per lift per session, at least when training for hypertrophy (training for strength on comp lifts is different, since unlike bodybuilding which generally involves staying within 2RIR, for strength you basically never want to be within 2RIR, generally 3-10RIR so you can get away with doing a lot of practice reps sometimes with as many as 7 sets or possibly even more). Always warm up with at least 2 warm up sets before each lift’s 1-2 work sets though.

As far as the exercises go, to cover all bases you’ll want a variation of each of the following: OHP in the frontal plane (meaning arms out to the sides or essentially “wide grip” — I prefer isolateral/single-arm on a machine, but any OHP in the frontal plane will do), side lateral raise, front lateral raise (preferably with a cable set at shoulder height such that you’re pulling it up diagonally), rear delt lateral raise in the sagittal plane (very important) preferably with a cable almost like you’re about to do single-arm tricep pushdowns (vary the angle so that it’s not quite 100% sagittal but more like 80% sagittal and 20% scapular, to give the rear delts the most precisely maximal leverage and stimulus). Optionals include: Y-raise, upright row.

Preferably, avoid doing rear delt laterals in the transverse plane (as they’re often shown), as this doesn’t hit them nearly as effectively as when done in the scapular plane or especially the sagittal plane. Also realize that any row variant in the sagittal or scapular plane that hits both the upper lats and upper back will hit the rear delts very hard as well.

Hope this helps. Happy lifting!

If chest keeps outgrowing delts, it’s usually because chest is getting hit indirectly all the time. You don’t need to kill chest work, just keep it at maintenance for a while.

For rear delts, I really like standing dual-cable rear delt flyes/crosses. Upright, cables around shoulder height, pull out and back. Way less neck strain than bent-over DB raises and way more consistent tension on the rear delts.

Train shoulders first when you’re fresh, push lateral and rear delts with higher reps and more frequency, and don’t rush load. It’s totally fine to progress delts while chest stays at the same weight or just adds reps for a block.

I have a shoulder dominant physique, as it has been my goal from the beginning. Here's how I have trained for the past 3yrs:
- only do incline presses for chest, this hits the upper chest and front delts better than flat pressing. Also hits the whole chest so no worries with lower/mid chest, it will maintain mass there.
- absolutely correct form on lateral raises, this is notoriously easy to mess up, resulting in traps hypertrophy rather than side delts. Always train to failure, and sometimes beyond failure. Switch between DB and cable lateral raises every 3-6 months to vary the resistance curve
- find a rear delt exercise that really hits the rear delts, not the traps or upper back, absolutely correct form on these also. These are even easier to mess up than lateral raises. I find that doing rep ranges of 20-30 will make it easier to isolate the rear deltoids, you will only feel the burn on rep 20th-30th though
- I don't do OHP regularly, incline benching is sufficient and my front delt is still overpowering my physique.
- but to bring up front/side delts, add OHP on top of incline presseing

TLDR, Programming:
3 sets of lateral raises, 0rir to beyond failure, 2x per week
3 sets of rear delt flyes (cable or DB, prefereably cables) 0rir to beyond failure, 2x per week

2 sets OHP, 1-2RIR, 2x per week (to bring up front/side delts as a whole)
4 sets incline press, 1-2RIR, 2x per week (this is enough to maintain chest mass while focusing more on front delts, and upper chest)

Don't be scared of putting chest on the backburner (or even "maintenance").

Focus on pummeling your shoulders, especially side delts. Your chest will NOT shrink, but your shoulders can catch up

Generally I find that those who have a chest dominant physique are just not lean enough to see shoulders. You will *always* have a more visible chest than shoulders, and your shoulders will only pop if you're lean enough. However this isn't popular advice because dieting requires a lot more discipline than just weight lifting.

If you think you're lean enough, then you just need to add more meaningful volume to your shoulders, and reduce chest volume if you want to have a more shoulder dominant physique.

Lower volume, frequency and/or intensity

what shoulder exercises do not cause neck pain right now? if any do, ask a physio for advice.

do something that loads the muscles (ie understand general planes of motion, how to do a good cable or db lateral, vertical pressing for more side delt vs front delt).

do a few sets of delt early in the session before you are overly cooked from pec work. do that 2-3x per week

My bread and butter movements are heavy overhead pressing (4-6 rep range) a side lateral movement pattern (8-12 rep range) then facepulls (8-12 rep range) and adjust volume and sets as needed… for example adding some shoulder movements to a chest / “push” day.

https://preview.redd.it/6k3uiwdvo78g1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4517242b0dfc0618530093b722ba810de831aa81

I have a pretty shoulder dominant physique

It's quite simple - stop working out chest

Some interesting answers here.

As someone who has a dominant upper shelf. Ensure you have a day specific for shoulders and train them to failure. You don’t need tons of volume, just intensity. I do 2 presses, (DB or smith, then standing bnp) side delts, rear delts and traps. Heavy dumbbell pressing and lat raising is your friend, but as above, hit the entirety of the shoulder in your workout once a week, overcompensate with sleep and food and they will grow. Simple.

I grew my delts considerably in the span of less than a year by starting with the following movements on all the days that i worked out

While bulking, I did the following 3 day routine for roughly 3 mesocycles (about 21-24 weeks or so, with 2 deloads included in between each meso)

Day 1 (Monday):

1. Machine lateral raises, 2 sets, 5-10 rep range
2. Machine overhead press, 1 set, 5-7 rep range
3. Reverse pec dec, 2 sets, 5-10 rep range

Day 2 (Wednesday):

1. Dumbbell lateral raise, 2 sets, 8-15 rep range
2. Seated dumbbell overhead press, 1 set, 8-12 rep range

Day 3 (Friday):

1. Unilateral cable lateral raise, 2 sets, 8-12 rep range
2. Standing Smith machine OHP, 1 set, 6-9 rep range
3. Unilateral cable rear delts, 8-12 rep range

After this i cut down about 5 kilos, and did the following 4 day routine while bulking for 2 mesocycles (about 18 weeks i think, with 1 deload week in-between the mesocycles):

Day 1 (Monday):

1. Machine lateral raises, 3 sets, 5-10 rep range
2. Reverse pec dec, 2 sets, 5-10 rep range

Day 2 (Tuesday):

1. Machine OHP, 2 sets, 5-7 rep range

Day 3 (Thursday, but i usually did it on Friday because it was more convenient for me):

1. Dumbbell lateral raise, 3 sets, 8-15 rep range
2. Unilateral cable rear delts, 8-12 rep range

Day 4 (Saturday):

1. Unilateral cable lateral raise, 3-4 sets, 8-12 rep range (i really liked doing this one)
2. Seated dumbbell overhead press, 2 set, 8-12 rep range

As you can see i slightly increase my volume on the latter two mesocycles, and i think i saw slightly better growth because of that.

After doing that i was happy with my shoulders, so i took a deload and after that i started focusing on growing my arms and back

One thing ill change next time when i want to focus on my delts is to increase my direct shoulder volume by 1-2 set per exercise and hope to see a bit more growth maybe

Do fewer chest sets. Put the shoulder press as your first exercise of the day. Then lateral raises. Then reverse flies. Then minimal chest work.

I'm a bit in a situation like yours. My chest responds great and grows from minimal work. And having larger shoulders has always been appealing to me. So I only have 6ish chest sets every week. And over double that for shoulders.

Hit Lateral raises for 20 sets a week using a variation of exercises (behind the back knee hight cable lateral raise, inclined laying-on-side dumbbell lateral raises, regular standing lateral raises, leaning forward on an inclined bench front/lateral raises, pronated overhead press dumbbell/machine/smith, stabilized [hold the rack] cable infront lateral raises) and a verity of angles (7 heads to each delt) for 12-20reps (start at 12 add weight if you get to 20), do other muscle groups 9-12sets as desired. Try not to swing or shurg the weight up with you traps and avoid momentum. Slow controlled decent, stop just before the tension unloads from the delt and go back up briskly/quick (with intention to push you're arms out and elbows up, rather than flapping like a bird).

I've been training my delts hard the past year and can see the striation of the delt heads (I'm really happy with my results or i wouldn't have shared)