Muscles Worked: Rear Deltoids
Spotter Required: No
Minimum Equipment required: Standard adjustable dumbbells
The Best Equipment to Use: Fixed dummbells or Olympic dumbbells
Warming up: To warm up, perform 1 set of 15 – 20 repetitions of the exercise with minimal weight.
How often should I perform this exercise: Bent over lateral raises is a great exercise to target the rear head of your deltoids and can be performed during every shoulder workout. To mix the exercise up you can do this seated or use a cable cross over machine.
When should I perform this exercise: I personally do rear deltoids last in my shoulder workouts but they can be performed at any time.
How to do the exercise: Holding the two dumbbells at your sides with your palms facing inwards and your elbows slightly bent, your feet need to be shoulder width apart and slightly bent. Your torso should be 45 degrees (i.e. parallel with the floor) and your head needs to be looking forward, if you have a mirror use it because it will help with balance.
Slowly lift the weights up to your sides until your arms are almost parallel to the floor, hold for ½ a second to get a good contraction and slowly lower back to the start position.
The trick this exercise is making sure your back doesn’t bounce, I often see people in the gym doing this exercise and bouncing their backs and throwing the weight up in an uncontrolled fashion. This means the weight is too heavy for them, if you find you are doing this then please use lighter weights. Secondly it’s imperative to make sure your knees and elbows are slightly bent as this takes pressure of your joints.
Mentality: Make sure you concentrate all your energy into the rear deltoids, this exercise is harder than it looks, I find it takes up quite a bit of energy and you will find when you get tired you wont be able to lift the dumbbells as high, if this happens don’t afraid to quickly grab some lighter dumbbells to finish off your sets. If you can quickly look in a mirror to help maintain balance.
Images:
Recent Comments