Delts: Just Not Feelin' Em

[quote]JLu wrote:

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
To target the medial delt the humerus MUST be pronated. Internal rotation of the upper arm is essential for someone whose front delts are dominant.

Using a lateral raise machine can help this becuase it allows you to concentrate on targeting the muscle. Behind the back ‘lean away’ cable raises are good also. Puts the medial delt in a stretched position and allows for greater ROM.

Side lateral raises with DB in front of the body are the last thing I’d recommend for someone who hasn’t developed the mind muscle connection in the medial delt. [/quote]
Can you elaborate on these “behind the back “lean away” lateral raises”? Are they essentially the cable equivalent of what Akuma said?[/quote]

No. The opposite angle.

Youd grab on to something attached to the cable stack. My gym has horizontal handles attached to the frame of the cable stack. Keep your feet pretty close to the stack and lean away from the stack. My body is usually a bit steeper than 45 degrees. From there you do a regular behind the back raise with a slight bend in the elbow. You have to be careful not to let your traps do most of the lift.

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
Cable Lateral Raises FTW. Personally, I do them with the cable behind my back, but either way is great.

In general I think shoulders respond better to lighter weights and higher reps, when you are dealing with raising movements. I generally stick to 10-15 reps when I’m doing raises, with a burn out set or a fast twitch set with lighter weights at the end.[/quote]

I disagree. My lateral delts get hit with a lot of weight. This has led to them standing out more than most who think heavy weight isn’t needed. I use a machine now for lateral raises, but I usually do the whole stack plus an added 2 45lbs plates hanging off.

Cable lateral raises actually restrict the weight used (as do dumbbells in some instances) because of your forearm,elbow taking much of the load.

I will say that I did dumbbells exclusively until I could do 55lbs for lateral raises but have seen way more growth since I moved to that lateral raise machine that allows your forearms to rest on the pads taking them largely out of the equation.[/quote]

Good to know, I will try this out for sure.

When you use the machine, do you sit so that you are facing towards the machine or away from it?

To Stu, Prof X, Westcoast, and anyone else who has impressive delt development…

Do you place your presses at the beginning of your shoulder routine? Or have you found it beneficial to open up with raises (to target the lateral and posterior portions) prior to pressing?

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
To Stu, Prof X, Westcoast, and anyone else who has impressive delt development…

Do you place your presses at the beginning of your shoulder routine? Or have you found it beneficial to open up with raises (to target the lateral and posterior portions) prior to pressing?[/quote]

I do my presses at the end of my shoulder workout and it has always worked well for me. I do 3 raise exercises(front, side, rear) and then 1-2 pressing exercises (military, javelin). I know that some may disagree, as it is like doing flys before benching, but I am pleased with the results.

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
To Stu, Prof X, Westcoast, and anyone else who has impressive delt development…

Do you place your presses at the beginning of your shoulder routine? Or have you found it beneficial to open up with raises (to target the lateral and posterior portions) prior to pressing?[/quote]

I do overhead presses first in the workout lately using a plate loaded machine. I start out with very light weight and often bounce the weight at the bottom of the movement all to get my tendons and joints ready for heavier weight. I rarely get joint inflammation there anymore and I think this may be why. I was going to give a range of sets that I usually do but I won’t because I am done when it feels like I’m done.

Last in the workout I do “high incline hammer strength presses” which I use in a way to target my anterior delts more.

While I used to always start with very heavy presses, I found that although my strength levels made quick, and steady gains, I was not getting the size that I was after. Eventually, I started focusing more on actually stressing the muscle in what I would consider the most effective manner that I could, and in this instance, it was actually working around my natural strength levels (especially in pressing movements). Even when I settled into using laterals before getting to the pressing work, I was still able to put up the 100 DB’s for 10 reps AFTER being pre-exhausted -lol.

These days though, as I’m really trying to focus on the tiny details, I like to make use of reverse grip BB presses after doing laterals, and then actually finishing up with regular BB presses (lately I’ve been doing them standing in a smith machine, and trying to keep my elbows slightly in front of me in an effort to really target the anterior portion of the delt).

S

Doing Lateral raise the classic way, I just don’t feel it.

I use wrist strap with dumbble for lateral raise and I don’t try to keep my elbow straight. My forearms stay perpendicular to the ground. I Use heavy dumbble, like 65s. Using strap and not trying to keep the arms straight release the tension from the elbow and put it on you shoulder. I have pain Using anything heavier than 40 lbs in my elbows for classic lateral raise anyway.

I Just focus on pulling up with my shoulder. This is the best way I found to do lateral raise, since I have no access to a machine.

The only thing I’ve really “felt” in my medial delts is seated dead-stop Skip laterals. Confusing, I know. My medial delts feel like they are going to explode when I do these. Tried the dead stop lateral idea after hearing Stu talk about it, and just kind of naturally did it in more of a “Skip” type motion instead of regular lateral raise fashion. Only been doing them for a couple weeks, so hard to quantify their efficacy, but time will tell.

what do you guys think about doing lateral raises lying on your side on an incline

like this dude: Incline Side-lying Lateral Raise - Shoulder Exercises - YouTube

?

I started a month ago and i much prefer them to standing laterals. I can’t use as much weight but i am curious what some of you all think.

Works for me, but I let the dumbbell travel a bit further down and back, almost to the lower back.

Im surprised to hear how lateral raises dont work for so many people, leaning db lateral raises hit my delts more than any other movement.

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
To Stu, Prof X, Westcoast, and anyone else who has impressive delt development…

Do you place your presses at the beginning of your shoulder routine? Or have you found it beneficial to open up with raises (to target the lateral and posterior portions) prior to pressing?[/quote]

I don’t know how big your delts have to be to respond, but I like to do presses on both ends of my workout.

I always start with my heavy free weight presses. Either dumbbell seated, or military presses, or push presses. I generally keep the volume fairly low, working up to about 3 working sets of around 3 to 6 reps.

Then I go to my isolation work, lateral raises, ect. and rotator cuff work (after you tear one, its good to keep them strong).

At the end I like to finish up with machine presses for some higher volume. I generally do something like 3x 10 to 12. I don’t generally push these really hard unless I just don’t feel like I hit them hard enough in the rest of the workout.

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Im surprised to hear how lateral raises dont work for so many people, leaning db lateral raises hit my delts more than any other movement. [/quote]

…and I would conclude that most simply do not know what they are doing. Nothing hits the lateral head like dumbbell lateral raises unless you are very advanced with the weight used. Seeing how few actually have impressive shoulders tells me that the problem is NOT always the movement itself.

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Im surprised to hear how lateral raises dont work for so many people, leaning db lateral raises hit my delts more than any other movement. [/quote]

I’ve seen less than a handful of people doing them correctly in my gym. They tend to keep their elbows below their hands at all time. Have a huge bend in their elbows, almost 90 degrees. And move the weight in a semi circle motion from the front of their body to behind their heads. The humerus stays supinated the entire time. Theres no chance to recruit the medial head do something like that.

This is an epidemic at my gym, exactly as Bonez has said it, it almost looks as if they are trying to fly, with a real herky jerky motion. Controlled with a slight bend at the elbow, static hold up top seems to do it for me.

I’ve made my delts sore quite a few times with very high volume on cable lateral raises.

My mind muscle connection on them has got a lot better with them due to that, now I can go quite heavy (6-8 reps) on laterals while making sure I contract the muscle as hard as possible.

If someone could post a video oh how lateral raises SHOULD be done it would be appreciated. So much contradictory information out there, I trust the big and strong guys here.

Ever since I started doing dumbbell laterals, whether they be seated, strict, one armed, or standing and loose form, my delts have actually began to grow in a way that I had never seen before. I have always done overhead pressing, but now no shoulder routine of mine would be without some dumbbell lateral raise variation.

I’m also a big fan of L-lateral raise, where your arms are at a 90 degree angle.

[quote]PB Andy wrote:
I’m also a big fan of L-lateral raise, where your arms are at a 90 degree angle.[/quote]

With a dumbell? How do you stress for medial delts if the center of the resistance is out in front of your body and not in line with the muscle youre trying to hit?