What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today we’re talking about the rear delt, and we’re going to put the science back
in strength as we do here, on this channel.
We’re going to take a muscle that a lot of time, let’s face it, doesn’t get trained
as often as it should.
We’re going to incorporate a variation of an exercise that doesn’t get done as often
as it should.
When we talk about the rear delt, guys, we have to understand what its function is.
A lot of times we stick to the old, basic exercise – the reverse fly – as our main,
go-to weapon.
I did a whole video about why that’s not what you want to do.
That’s not the best way to train because we’re overlooking one of the major functions
of the rear delt.
With that we know that the rear delt likes to do this.
It likes to do this horizontal movement of the arm backwards, behind our body.
But what’s more important is actually getting extension of the upper arm here back, behind
our body.
When we have our arms out straight we literally get locked in.
that’s as far as we can go.
But if we’re willing to bend the elbow we can get more into extension back, behind our
body here, which gives us more activation.
You can feel it.
Literally, stand up and do it.
You can feel the difference.
But we also always overlook the aspect of external rotation of the shoulder that really
locks that in.
When we’re in this position if we can externally rotate the shoulder we can really, really
feel the contraction here on that rear delt.
So how can we do that in a better way?
Well, we talked about using face pulls, that’s why face pulls work the rear delts in a nice
way, because we can get them to externally rotate, as I drive my arm back.
But we have other options.
This is my favorite way.
It actually involves another tweak midway through the exercise that gives us a chance
to overload a little bit more.
So we grab here, we start with two – I’ll show you how you can do this with dumbbells,
too.
We’re basically going to be in this position here.
Thumbs together, internally rotated arms.
This is external rotation, this is internal.
So if we want to get to external, you should start in internal.
So if we’re in internal rotation here, I’m going to then take my arms, scoop them out,
and up, and back.
I always talk about making a W with your arms.
That’s the best way to hit the rear delts.
So you can see my elbows are leading the direction, and the thumbs are trying to catch up.
So my elbows are going this way, so I get that extension of the upper arm, behind the
back, and the thumbs are trying to catch them.
But it’s hard because of where all the resistance is.
Now, when we come back down, we scoop down, and then point toward each other.
So back up again.
Externally rotate up, elbows back, drive them back, behind the body, thumbs pointing back
behind them.
Now I could stay here, and this would be hard enough in this contraction, but what I want
to do now is, I could extend the arms out a little bit, and then resist that on the
way down.
We’ve increased the length of the moment arm, increasing the work that the rear delts
have to do.
So, Jesse comes around the back it looks like this.
We’re starting down, and in, we come up, and out right there, good contraction.
If you want, go right back down here, and go into your next rep, right there, and down.
Or if you’re looking for that more advanced version, from here, then drive them out, and
then down, rotate your thumbs down, and in, back to the start.
And down.
Now, I mentioned that you could do that with dumbbells as well.
So how we do that is, we come here on a bench, lay face down, get toward the end, hook your
feet on the end of the bench, if you can, grab a couple light pairs of dumbbells, guys.
Light pairs of dumbbells.
Some people might not even have to use any.
Again, what you’re trying to do is, you get your hands in this position here.
So you have your thumbs toward each other.
So when we come up to the top we can externally rotate and we’ll go like this.
Here, externally rotate, drive them up like that, and then from here, bring them up, and
out.
Out, and down.
So, up into a W, out, and down.
Up, out, and down.
I’m making them sound like they’re about 50lbs a piece, but I promise you they’re
only 5lbs a piece.
It’s just that damn hard when you actually allow the weights to target the muscles you’re
trying to train.
Guys, don’t be fooled.
Your body, your muscles do not know what number it says here on the side of the dumbbell.
They don’t know that.
all they care about is what it feels like on the muscle you’re trying to train.
The sooner you can understand that, and grasp that, and use that to your advantage, the
faster your muscles will grow.
Stop avoiding rear delt training.
It’s just as important as the front delts, and the side delts that get a lot more of
our attention.
Guys, there’s no unimportant muscle.
When you train like an athlete you want to train everything, overlook nothing.
All of our programs do that.
you can get them over at ATHLEANX.com.
In the meantime, if you’ve found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up
below.
Let us know what you want us to cover here in a future video and I’ll do my best to
do that, guys.
I will put the science back in strength every time we do.
All right, guys.
See you soon.