Granted, if you saw the pictures of Sharon Stone wearing nothing but stilettos and black underwear in the French magazine Paris Match last month, it may not have been her shoulders that you noticed — but they shone when she appeared in a tiny red-and-white bikini on holiday in Sardinia last week. Shoulders, an often-overlooked part of the body, can make or break an otherwise perfect female form. Too narrow or bony and they make the hips look large; too broad and they can make the upper body look masculine and muscular. At 51, Stone has perfected her shoulder structure so that everything else is in proportion.

What’s her secret?

In celebrity terms, Stone might almost be accused of workout negligence. She claims not to exercise every day, or even every other day, and is an advocate of integrating exercise into her life. “I work out only as much as I have to to not be a fat ass. I chase three children to stay in shape,” she said recently. “I don't have a regular fitness routine. You park farther from the door; you take the stairs instead of the elevator. Over time that makes a difference.”

There is an element of Hollywood in the admission that she occasionally goes on “workout benders” when she exercises “like a maniac”, doing Pilates, running and plenty of the jack-knife (or v-sit) abdominal exercises that she was taught by an African tightrope walker. But the refreshingly normal reaction to all that frenetic activity is a period when all she wants to do is wallow in long baths. It sounds so familiar. Why don’t we look like that?

What you can do:

The overhead press exercise works the shoulders as well as the chest muscles and triceps. Stand with your back straight and feet shoulder-width apart. Hold a 2lb to 3lb dumb-bell in each hand, bending the elbows and resting the weights lightly on your shoulders with palms facing each other. Extend your arms above your head, rotating the hands slightly so that when the arms straighten at the top of the move, the palms of the hands are facing the front. Keep your hips level and pushed slightly forward. Don’t lean back with the the weights (you should be able to se them out of the corners of your eyes).

Repeat six to 12 times. Build up until you can do three sets. Expect results within three to six weeks.

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