Build round, capped shoulders one clean rep at a time.
Lead with your elbows and don't swing, let your delts do the lifting.
Raising the dumbbells out to shoulder height in a controlled arc isolates the delts, the muscle that gives shoulders their width and cap. With a slight fixed elbow bend and a pause at the top, there is nowhere for momentum to sneak in, so the delts lift every gram. Presses build shoulder strength, but raises like this are what carve the shape, which is why they anchor most shoulder days.
To shoulder height, no higher. Above that, other muscles take over the movement and the delts stop being the story. Pause briefly at parallel and lower slow, that descent is half the exercise.
Because the delts are lifting through a long lever with no help, and heavy dumbbells recruit swing and trap shrug instead. A lighter pair raised strictly with an elbow-led arc will build more shoulder than a heavy pair heaved.
You are shrugging the weight up instead of raising it out. Depress your shoulders away from your ears before the first rep, lead with the elbows, and shorten the range if the shrug creeps back in near the top.
