Sometimes when you’re working your shoulder, you may find yourself neglecting your rear deltoids. The Rear Delt Isolation workout is designed to correct that. Besides, having proportionate shoulders can help make your hips look slimmer, and that’s always a good thing.
So let’s go over the steps:
- You start by doing a variation of the lateral raise, in which you raise your dumbbells as if you were doing a butterfly stroke. This is more like a warm-up than a proper part of the workout, but that makes it a good starter exercise. It really warms up your shoulders for the exercises. Don’t forget to bend forward a little, and keep your knees from locking up. In the video, Greg Elston does 12 reps.
- The first proper exercise comes next, but it’s basically the same exercise. It just involves a bit heavier, but still manageable weights. Pay attention to how controlled the movements are—this stresses the rear delts even more. This time it’s for 10 reps in the set, and you need to do two sets. It’s the forward movement variation that puts the stress on the rear delts.
- Next comes the seated delt raise with dumbbells. Again, get some weights which will allow you to do about 10 to 12 reps. Don’t forget that the weight is not as important as the control over your movements. It’s the tension that creates the stress you need for your rear delt isolation workout.
- Then it’s on to the cables. Here you need to pay attention to the placement of your hands. The lifting hand starts behind your back, so as to activate the rear delt, but raising your arm past your shoulders also works your alts. Your other hand should be on your stomach, so you can make sure that your core is engaged. The advantage of the cables is that it acts like a free weight, but it allows you greater control over your movements. About 8 to 10 reps should suffice for a set, and then use the other arm to lift.
- At this point, you may feel some fatigue. You may be tempted to use heavy weights and let momentum do the work, but you need to resist this urge. Instead, your focus should be on your contractions and not on the weight.
- Now comes the last stage: the FST7 workout. You’re to do some lateral raises, which will completely work the delts and get some blood development going into the shoulders. You need some nice medium weights, which should enable you to do at least 8 reps and go to failure at around 10 reps.
Here Greg readies three pairs of dumbbells of decreasing weights. The heaviest pair of dumbbells is used for three sets. The next two sets involve a lighter pair of dumbbells, and the lightest dumbbells are for the final set, which is done to failure.
