Incorporating heavy presses, upright rows, and lateral raises in your shoulder routine will help you get massive shoulders, because all of those are great exercises for the front and side of your delts. But what about your rear deltoids? Leaving them underdeveloped risks creating a shoulder complex imbalance and increases the likelihood of shoulder injuries.
The rear deltoid actually acts more like a back muscle. Its three main functions are horizontal abduction (think rear lateral raises), external rotation of the upper arm, and extension of the upper arm.
Well-developed rear delts help keep your shoulders balanced and straight. They prevent the rounding that happens when your front deltoids overpower your rear delts from a high volume of pressing movements — bench presses, overhead presses, and so on — and they help prevent a lot of shoulder injuries and rotator cuff problems.
Strong rear delts will also improve your strength on exercises like the bench press. With a strong, well-developed upper back, you’re able to generate a lot more pressing power.
One exercise that works the rear delts really well is the lying rear lateral raise.
Starting Position
– Lay down with your chest on a slightly inclined bench (about 15-20 degrees).
– Pick up a dumbbell in each hand, let your arms hang straight down, and position your hands so they’re facing each other.
Rear Lateral Raise Movement
With your elbows slightly bent, raise your arms out to the sides until your elbows reach shoulder height and your arms are almost parallel to the floor.
Hold for a second, then return to the starting position. Exhale on the way up (the hardest part of the movement) and inhale on the way down.
Sets and Reps
The rear delts respond best to higher reps and lighter loads compared to a lot of other shoulder work, since it’s a smaller muscle that’s easy to overload with momentum if the weight is too heavy. Aim for 3-4 sets of 15-20 reps, focusing on a controlled tempo and a real squeeze at the top of every rep rather than chasing heavier dumbbells.
Since your rear delts are already getting some indirect work from rows and pull-based back exercises, most people don’t need to train them more than twice a week to see solid growth.
Goal
This exercise works your rear deltoids directly, and hits your traps to a lesser degree as a secondary mover.
Tips
– Pick a relatively light weight when performing the exercise. It works best with light loads and a higher rep count (15-20).
– Contract your abs throughout the motion to keep your torso stable on the bench.
– Keep a slight, consistent bend in your elbows throughout the set — locking them out shifts stress onto the elbow joint and takes tension off the rear delts.
– Focus on leading the movement with your elbows, not your hands, to keep the emphasis on your shoulders instead of your forearms.
Rear Lateral Raise Common Mistakes
The lying position helps limit cheating and takes pressure off your spine, but a few mistakes still show up often:
Using too much weight. Picking up weight that’s too heavy makes your back do the work instead of your rear shoulders, defeating the whole point of the exercise.
Using momentum to swing the weight up. If you’re using your body to help heave the dumbbells up rather than your rear delts doing the lifting, the weight is too heavy — drop it down and slow the movement.
Shrugging instead of raising. Letting your traps take over and shrug the weight up, rather than raising through the shoulder joint, shifts the work away from the muscle you’re trying to target.
Cutting the range of motion short. Stopping well before your arms reach shoulder height reduces how much the rear delts actually get to contract, and limits the muscle-building stimulus you get out of each rep.
Variations Worth Trying
If you want to rotate in some variety or hit your rear delts from a different angle, options like the standing rear delt raise, cable rear delt fly, face pulls, and the reverse pec deck machine all train the same muscle with a different setup. Our guide to 4 Rear Delt Exercises For Stronger Shoulders covers several of these in more depth if you want to build out a full rear delt rotation.
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