Do you need to cultivate solid shoulders with a big definition? Then, rear deltoid exercises will help you with that! These exercises will not only operate on your shoulder but also enrich your posture by transmitting extra backing to your back muscles and benefiting you with core stability. But, what kind of workout is a rear delt exercise? And, what are the best rear delt exercises? Come, let’s understand all these things:
What Are Delts?
Delts are the deltoid muscles of your shoulders that exist in the form of ball-and-socket-joint and attach your arm to your body’s trunk. The delts enable you to move the arms of your body in different directions. Besides, they are also known for protecting and stabilizing your shoulder joint. Delts, like most of your other body muscles, are skeletal muscles.
4 Best Rear Delt Workouts Designed For Your Shoulder As Well As Back Muscles
Here is a detailed list of the best rear delt exercises that will supervise your muscle growth, overall health, well-being, and core strength:
1. Rear Delt Cable Fly Exercises
This exercise is also known as the ‘Reverse Cable Fly’ exercise. This exercise will increase the definition and strength of your deltoid muscles.
Also, this rear deltoid workout will engage a variety of your upper body muscles, and it does so while honing in on the rear deltoids or posterior deltoids of your body.
The rear delt cable fly exercise is remembered for working both on our body’s primary as well as secondary muscle groups.
It advantages your body by enriching your posture, carving your shoulders stronger, and boosting your aesthetics. A cable machine and its handle attachments are required for conducting this exercise.
Your goal should be to finish 3 to 4 batches of ten to twelve reps of this rear delt cable fly exercise. And, as you feel further comfortable with it, change up your rep as well as set ranges for challenging yourself.
A few people continuously make mistakes while performing this exercise, such as bending their elbows, finishing partial reps, and bringing their arms too low. But, it would be best if you avoid these mistakes.
There are multiple variations of this workout, and they are:
- Bent-over cable fly exercise for rear delt
- One-arm standing cable fly exercise for rear delt
- Bent-over dumbbell exercise (reverse fly)
How To Do The Exercise?
- Stand up so that your feet and shoulder remain wide apart.
- Put the cable machine’s pulleys to a height almost above your head.
- Now, clasp your left hand using your right one and the right-sided handle using your left hand.
- Keep your arms in this crossed position. You have to start your arms from this position.
- Stand in the cable machine’s center. Take one step in the backward direction to create some friction in the cables.
- With a rigid core, contract your posterior deltoids to bring your arms backward. It must be continued until you experience a pinch in the blades of your shoulder.
- Fetch your arms back slowly into the initiating position. Just maintain a subtle bend in the arms of your body as you do the motion.
- Continue maintaining the tightness of your core. Repeat.
2. Rear Delt Dumbbell Fly Workout
This exercise is designed explicitly for sculpted shoulders and is also known as the rear delt dumbbell raise exercise.
To get much out of this workout, maintain the safety of your shoulder. Remember, good form is the solution.
To ensure that you’re hitting the target muscle, do the exercise in slow motion and controlled way.
Begin with a pair of dumbbells that are light and perform ten reps. After you begin to get comfortable with it, you can start increasing your weight gradually.
This exercise possesses many benefits as it increases a person’s strength and endurance, improves his posture, increases his body’s lean muscle mass levels, boosts his metabolism, and makes his bones stronger.
Some people keep making mistakes while doing this exercise, like curving their spine, straightening their elbows, lifting too heavy, using momentum, and scrunching their shoulders. You should avoid doing them.
Also, you can use some techniques to make your exercise perfect. For example, you can take the help of a bench, use the reversal pec deck, do the exercise seated, and try doing the reverse cable machine raise.
How To Do The Exercise?
- Start up the workout by standing and clenching dumbbells in each hand. Your feet and hip should be kept width apart.
- Now, push back the hips of your body behind you.
- Kneel your knees a little and crouch your torso in the forward direction with a constant back. You should retain the exact hip-hinge stance throughout your workout.
- Allow the weights to hang down in the direction of the floor by slightly bending your elbows and making your palms face each other.
- Now lift the weights onto your sides. Do this until they come in line with the shoulders of your body.
- Lower down your hands’ dumbbells with control.
3. Seated Rear Delt Fly Exercises
It’s an upper-body exercise whose targets are the physical deltoids of your shoulder. Performing the movement in a seated position eliminates momentum from your body’s rest parts.
Each movement in this exercise is conducted for moderate to elevated reps (for instance, 8 to 12 reps/set or more). It’s done as a workout portion focusing on your upper body or the shoulder of your body.
Exercise possesses many benefits for its doers. It promotes good shoulder health as well as balanced development.
It’s also a great burnout movement done on shoulder day. Again, the exercise strengthens your upper back’s significant postural muscles.
The exercise though performed standing gives you the option to do it in a seating position. This is particularly applicable to those having lower back problems.
How To Do The Exercise?
- Keep a pair of dumbbells over a flat bench, so the dumbbells look forward.
- Go to the end of that bench and sit there, putting your legs together. Also, put the dumbbells beneath your calves.
- Have a bending at your waist while keeping your back straight for picking up the dumbbells.
- Face your hands’ palms towards each other while picking them up. Make this your starting position.
- Now, lift your dumbbells straight towards the side by maintaining your torso fixed and forward, and your arms slightly bent at your elbows. Do it until both of your arms become parallel to the ground.
- You must avoid swinging your torso and bringing your arms back by opposing them to the side.
- After one second of compression at the top, gradually lower your dumbbells. Take them back to the initiating position.
- Repeat the steps for the recommended number of repetitions.
4. T-Bar Rows Exercise
Great for hitting a range of your muscles and working towards carving your good core strength, the ‘T-Bar Row exercise keeps your posterior deltoid as well as other muscles (latissimus dorsi, rhomboids, and trapezius) engaged.
The exercise will serve as an excellent activity for including the sessions of your upper body workout or other workouts required for building up your body’s back part and shoulders.
Remember that, though this bent-over barbell row will serve as a great exercise to build upper back strength throughout, it also involves a great risk of back trauma.
It’s always wise to perform this workout as a safer option and yet grow muscle mass or strength in the back part and shoulders of your body.
How To Do The Exercise?
- Plate up one barbell on an end while supporting another end against a wall/another immovable thing.
- Bend over the bar’s end close to the weight. Take it with the help of one V-grip handle in both hands.
- Maintain an impartial arch in the lower part of your back. Squeeze the shoulder blades of your body together while lifting the bar. Ensure that the plate caresses your chest.
- Gradually lower it down to take it back to the initiating position by keeping the back and shoulders of your body engaged with the gesture.
Wrapping Up
So, the above workouts are a few of the best rear delt exercises that will certainly aid your shoulder and your distinct postures. Keep accomplishing them regularly, and the consequence will be something astounding.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about Best Rear Delt Exercises
Q. How do I hit my rear deltoid?
Answer: You can hit your rear deltoid and help improve its strength by doing some of the best rear delt exercises regularly. Such exercises are:
1. The rear delt cable fly exercise.
2. Rear delt dumbbell fly exercise.
3. Seated rear delt fly exercise.
Other exercises include single-arm bent-over row exercise, standing bent-over lateral fly exercise, cable machine elevated pull using ropes exercise, assisted pullup exercise, side-lying external rotation exercise, etc.
Q. Are rear delts hard to grow?
Answer: Yes, rear delts are tough to grow because they remain underdeveloped and weak. The reason for that is carrying too much weight to get the job done while the other muscle groups remain busy completing the rep.
As real delts are hard to hit, we must respect the truth that it won’t require much weight to target them hard.
Q. Is it worth training rear delts?
Answer: Yes, rear delts or posterior delts are worth training as they are critical muscles of your shoulder that act as shoulder stabilizers too.
Q. How many times a week does an individual need to work on rear delts?
Answer: As an intermediate-advanced weightlifter, you must conduct at least six batches of immediate posterior delt training weekly to produce gains.
One’s rear delts recoup too shortly; hence, training them one time per week is probably not ideal for lasting progress.
