Top Rear Delt Exercises

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:

[quote]D_C wrote:
Hang and Swing Destroyer Set - YouTube [/quote]
fixed[/quote]

Cheers.

Superset of low pully - high face pull, and rear flys. ala Mr. Meadows.

Personally I believe the bulk of my rear delt growth has come from getting stronger on rows and pull-ups, but exercises like facepulls and rear delt flyes lying on an incline bench has helped a lot too. I also really like the side lying external rotation. I started doing it for prehab purposes, but noticed some really good rear delt growth from it as well, despite using puny weights (4 - 8 kg) and the fact that tension is low on the top of the movement.

Have finally gotten round to Wolfe face-pulls as recommended by CC, really liked them.

just started doing facepulls, bent over lateral raises for the rear delt. Hope I see some improvement in my rear delts in some time by doing them.

ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:

[quote]florelius wrote:
ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Complete guess work from internet land

  1. Stretch lats
  2. Doorway stretch for chest
  3. Strengthen lower traps

[quote]plateau wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Complete guess work from internet land

  1. Stretch lats
  2. Doorway stretch for chest
  3. Strengthen lower traps[/quote]

stretching my lats and chest is part of my warmup, but maybe it will help if I do it everyday.

about lower traps: will static holds in the bottom of pulldowns strengthen my lower traps? I read something about that some time ago, think it was poliquin.

thanks for the help plateau :slight_smile:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]plateau wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Complete guess work from internet land

  1. Stretch lats
  2. Doorway stretch for chest
  3. Strengthen lower traps[/quote]

stretching my lats and chest is part of my warmup, but maybe it will help if I do it everyday.

about lower traps: will static holds in the bottom of pulldowns strengthen my lower traps? I read something about that some time ago, think it was poliquin.

thanks for the help plateau :slight_smile:
[/quote]

How long are you stretching for? How often do you work-out?

yes if done properly… Maybe vary the exercise though? Prone Ys, face-pulls, even laying cobra

Single arm reverse flyes, just started doing these 2 weeks ago but it’s a keeper. It’s like a lazer guided missile to your rear delt, where as reverse dumbbell flies (for me) were kind of like 75% hit rate and the rest miss lol.

My rear delts are picky.

[quote]plateau wrote:
Have finally gotten round to Wolfe face-pulls as recommended by CC, really liked them.[/quote]

“wolfe face-pulls” more detail please??? any vids?

and also, what do you guys think about pinch-grip rows for rear delts?

[quote]plateau wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:

[quote]plateau wrote:

[quote]florelius wrote:
ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Complete guess work from internet land

  1. Stretch lats
  2. Doorway stretch for chest
  3. Strengthen lower traps[/quote]

stretching my lats and chest is part of my warmup, but maybe it will help if I do it everyday.

about lower traps: will static holds in the bottom of pulldowns strengthen my lower traps? I read something about that some time ago, think it was poliquin.

thanks for the help plateau :slight_smile:
[/quote]

How long are you stretching for? How often do you work-out?

yes if done properly… Maybe vary the exercise though? Prone Ys, face-pulls, even laying cobra[/quote]

for 30sec when I warm up before a workout, I could probably benefit from doing it more often( everyday before bed perhaps ) and for longer duration at each time.

I do facepulls, but dont know what lying cobra and prone Ys is.

At the moment this is what I do for shoulders and traps: lateral raises, bent over lateral raises, shrugs with bit of a forward tilt and facepulls with rope in the cabel maschine + I do external rotations as part of my warm up.

At the moment I only trains tbt twice a week, but when I am done with my bachelor paper next week I can pump up the workouts to four each week.

again thanks for the help plateu :slight_smile:

I guess I’m the only one who likes behind-the-back rows? My rear delts came up quite a bit when I started using them in January.

[quote]SWAD1987 wrote:

[quote]plateau wrote:
Have finally gotten round to Wolfe face-pulls as recommended by CC, really liked them.[/quote]

“wolfe face-pulls” more detail please??? any vids?

[/quote]
Google the above, can’t provide the link to it as it is a competitor site or drop me a PM.

Kroc rows work pretty well. When you’re rowing close to your bodyweight with one hand for 20+ reps, things happen, despite how ugly it may look.

[quote]florelius wrote:
ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Another guess: DC stretches.
Stand up. Hold a broomstick in your hands. Without moving your hands on the broomstick, raise the broomstick over your head and bring it down behind your back. Then bring it back. Repeat for annoyingly high reps. (I.e. watch a movie or something when you do this). And don’t move through this quickly, it’s a stretch, you should feel the stretch.

And stretch your chest by taking heavy dbs in your hands and holding them at the bottom of a db bench press for about a minute. Works way better for me than the doorway stretch.

And may I ask how you know that your left pec minor is tight?

[quote]kakno wrote:
Kroc rows work pretty well. When you’re rowing close to your bodyweight with one hand for 20+ reps, things happen, despite how ugly it may look.

[quote]florelius wrote:
ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Another guess: DC stretches.
Stand up. Hold a broomstick in your hands. Without moving your hands on the broomstick, raise the broomstick over your head and bring it down behind your back. Then bring it back. Repeat for annoyingly high reps. (I.e. watch a movie or something when you do this). And don’t move through this quickly, it’s a stretch, you should feel the stretch.

And stretch your chest by taking heavy dbs in your hands and holding them at the bottom of a db bench press for about a minute. Works way better for me than the doorway stretch.

And may I ask how you know that your left pec minor is tight?[/quote]

It’s a good point about not really being certain whether it’s pec minor/major/subscapularis etc etc which is tight.

What I do know is, I had recurrent shoulder problems, now long gone, due to several things. What i’m certain helped (and relevant here) are lots of STRICT FORM (not dropped suddenly on eccentric) face pulls with neutral grip, and loads more back and rear delt work, and, for pec tightness, taking a tennis ball (starting with an old, soft one, eventually progressing to a hard one, then to my clenched fist) pressed against the wall, applying the ball to the part where the pec meets the anterior deltoid/upper arm, and roling lots. It looks weird but helps so much. I would always hurt my shoulder if i just tried stretching my pecs. The key for me was:

Don’t stretch pecs. Foam roll pecs (and subscapularis in the armpit and lats as well- all internal rotators of the shoulder) and activate/ exercise back. If you think about it, a strong contraction at the top of a rowing-type movement, especially wide grip, will stretch your pecs. And far better to pull your pecs into stretch by using the antagonistic muscles, than to just ram your arm into an extreme pec stretch, in my experience.

PS rear delts are so underrated, it’s great to see this thread going strong

check these out ski-rows Ski-Rows For rear delts - YouTube

[quote]Rell wrote:
check these out ski-rows Ski-Rows For rear delts - YouTube

Too much lat, not enough rear-delt.

face pulls works fine

[quote]dannyrat wrote:

[quote]kakno wrote:
Kroc rows work pretty well. When you’re rowing close to your bodyweight with one hand for 20+ reps, things happen, despite how ugly it may look.

[quote]florelius wrote:
ps. My left pectoral-minor is tight and forcing my left shoulder forward. Does anybody have a corrective excercise I can do on my own for this? I would be very grateful for any help about this issue :slight_smile:
[/quote]

Another guess: DC stretches.
Stand up. Hold a broomstick in your hands. Without moving your hands on the broomstick, raise the broomstick over your head and bring it down behind your back. Then bring it back. Repeat for annoyingly high reps. (I.e. watch a movie or something when you do this). And don’t move through this quickly, it’s a stretch, you should feel the stretch.

And stretch your chest by taking heavy dbs in your hands and holding them at the bottom of a db bench press for about a minute. Works way better for me than the doorway stretch.

And may I ask how you know that your left pec minor is tight?[/quote]

It’s a good point about not really being certain whether it’s pec minor/major/subscapularis etc etc which is tight.

What I do know is, I had recurrent shoulder problems, now long gone, due to several things. What i’m certain helped (and relevant here) are lots of STRICT FORM (not dropped suddenly on eccentric) face pulls with neutral grip, and loads more back and rear delt work, and, for pec tightness, taking a tennis ball (starting with an old, soft one, eventually progressing to a hard one, then to my clenched fist) pressed against the wall, applying the ball to the part where the pec meets the anterior deltoid/upper arm, and roling lots. It looks weird but helps so much. I would always hurt my shoulder if i just tried stretching my pecs. The key for me was:

Don’t stretch pecs. Foam roll pecs (and subscapularis in the armpit and lats as well- all internal rotators of the shoulder) and activate/ exercise back. If you think about it, a strong contraction at the top of a rowing-type movement, especially wide grip, will stretch your pecs. And far better to pull your pecs into stretch by using the antagonistic muscles, than to just ram your arm into an extreme pec stretch, in my experience. [/quote]

I agree that foam rolling those areas is great, and for me is a necessity, but I also have found the stretch kakno mentioned to be a huge help. I have been using an elastic band instead of the broomstick though. I find it a little more forgiving on my shoulders plus I think the tension in the band helps activate the back muscles.

Once everything is opened up a little bit I find traditional door pec stretches etc. to be easier and more beneficial. I don’t think ramming your arm into an extreme stretch pec was what people had in mind, though. lol