What's up, guys?!
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
The muscle marker is back.
For those that have been asking for it.
My own markers come out in my videos, and asking for them?
Here they are.
I'm going to show you a way to hit your rear delts to train them, and build them with just
on exercise.
It all revolves around the anatomy of the rear delt, and how it actually works.
That's why the muscle marker is out.
Thankfully, I didn't have to draw this.
I got a little help from Jessie, but when we see people train the rear delts we see
them, all the time, do this reverse fly.
They're doing what is called horizontal abduction.
Moving the arm back this way.
The thing is, that is not necessarily the best way to train the rear delts.
You don't even get maximum shortening of the rear delt that way.
you're better off getting this movement, which is transverse extension.
In other words, an extension of the arm back, behind the body, in this plane.
Like that.
Now, look at the difference.
I'll do it again.
When I do a reverse fly you can see a certain level of shortening of that muscle.
From here, back to there.
Now, when I come up, if I do transverse extension instead, here you can see that muscle is shortened
more substantially.
Now why is that?
Well, we're also getting this little rotation of the arm, into external rotation.
I'm going to tell you why that's a very important point, but more importantly, I'm going to
show you how to do it with one exercise.
When you come over here you can take a lighter dumbbell...and I stress �lighter' because
when you train directly, your rear delt, do it on shoulder day, and make sure you're doing
it.
We know we go in there and bang out our front raises, we press, we do side raises, and then
we leave the gym and forget about the rear delts because, �who the hell cares?
We can't see them anyway.'
Well, we do care, and we want to see them.
So what we do is, we grab the lighter dumbbells, we lean forward here on a rack, you can do
it on a bench, but I like to be a little bit more upright for this.
But we have to get bent over so we can actually work against gravity, and target this muscle.
Now what we do is, we do a high raise here.
we're leaving the elbow...you can see the angle is away from the body.
it's not here.
Up, up, and that's a key thing.
it's up, and as we come up we're going to supinate the forearm here, but what we're
really trying to do is externally rotate the shoulder.
So we get up to the top, and we lift, and we pull, and we squeeze.
And right there, I'm telling you, if you never did this exercise you're going to feel one
of the most intense cramps in that rear delt, specifically, because you're hitting it better
than you ever had before.
Why?
Because that external rotation is a component motion of the rear delt, and it helps you
to externally rotate, and it assists the rotator cuff muscles to rotate here.
So what we do is, we're driving up, into extension, as far back as we can.
Get that elbow back, behind the body, but square up.
If you look here, Jessie, I've got a square torso here.
I'm not cheating it.
This stays square so I know I'm getting extension behind my body.
What you get is the number one key motion for this muscle to hit it.
Not this.
Not out to the side.
Back, behind you.
And if we lift up, and pull the elbow, and drag it back, behind us while we turn into
external rotation; now we can train the muscle.
Again, I'm using just 10lbs here, and I'm lighting up that rear delt.
So now, what is another lesson that comes from this?
Another lesson is, we can hit this on back day even more.
So if it's a lagging area for you, if you want to keep more volume in this area, especially
doing it on back day let's us have more heavy volume directed at this area.
So how do you do that?
Well, if you're doing a lat pull down, and you're doing all your sets in this fashion,
here, with the elbows heading down to train your lats, in the last set what you can do
is, just lean back a bit, and then let the elbow travel back.
So it's traveling in the same way, this way, this way, as I was just doing on that other
exercise here.
So by just leaning back a little bit, I can use heavier weights, like I normally would
on a lat pull down, go back that way, and really train it.
Now if I got underneath this way, I'm getting more external rotation in the shoulders, and
again I can do the same thing, and really target up, in that rear delt.
Again, have your weight in a separate day of the week than I'm training that will allow
me to have more volume.
Same thing here.
I could do a one arm row...again, this is with more weight in my hand...and the thing
is, instead of keeping the elbow tucked for all your sets, because that's going to be
more effective for the lats...which we've covered before�I want that elbow to drift,
and when it drifts out to the side I lift, and I turn.
I lift, and I turn just a little like that which gives me the unique opportunity to hit
that rear delt.
One other final example, you've probably felt this if you ever did a seated row.
If you're doing a seated row, and you're doing them all with a post grip handle you probably
don't feel much rear delt soreness the next day.
But if you ever do it with a straight bar and you come to the top when you're doing
straight bar rows you're getting exactly that elevated position of the elbow, and drilling
that posterior delt intensely.
So you will feel it the next day.
So guys, that is how you hit your rear delts.
Now I've given you other exercise too...the W raise, and things like that...that incorporate
external rotation into it, but some people don't necessarily have that level of strength
in their rotator cuff to do it.
Here, all you need to do is follow what I said.
Do this with that smaller dumbbell, and that lighter weight, with a more focused contraction
on shoulder training day, or when you do train your shoulders, and then on back day, or pull
day start loading on a little bit more, or incorporate some additional sets the way I
showed you.
All right, guys.
Stop ignoring the rear delt.
It matters just as much as all the other ones, and it balances out your physique, and we
never overlook anything here at ATHLEANX.
That is the key, and I certainly don't do it in any of our programs either because all
of these muscles are important.
They all have a role, and they all function to keep your whole body healthy.
Head to ATHLEANX.com right now.
Get one of our programs.
Use the program selector beneath this video and you'll be able to pick the program that's
best suited to your current goal.
All of them, though, will follow the same principle where we always try to put the science
back in what we do so you understand it better, and know how, and why you're doing what you're
doing.
All right, guys.
I'll be back here again soon.
Leave your comments and thumbs up.
Let me know what you want me to cover in a future video, and I'll do my best to do that
for you in the days, and weeks ahead.
See you.