Bent-over dumbbell raises. Correct bent over raises with dumbbells - the technique of swings while standing, sitting and overhead raises. Performing seated dumbbell raises

It is more difficult to pump up the rear bundle of deltoid muscles than the middle or anterior one, all because there are a huge number of exercises for pumping them up and the back part rests in them. In fact, there is only one exercise for developing the rear delts - the dumbbell raise. It allows you to work out the volume and relief of these muscles as efficiently as possible.

Bent-over dumbbell flyes can be included in the TOP 10 exercises that are performed incorrectly by athletes. Everyone performs it in their own way, as it is convenient for them, while using non-target muscles.

The rear deltoid is the lagging behind the entire muscle group - this is not surprising because the front part works in almost all exercises. Bent-over dumbbell flyes are designed to pump up and lift the lagging part.

Anatomy and function of the rear delts

Basic

Posterior delta bundle;
middle bundle of deltas;

Synergists

Rhomboid muscle
trapezoidal
round

Muscle stabilizers

Wrist extensors
posterior thigh
spinal extensors
gluteus maximus
triceps

Advantages of inclined wiring

Harmonious and balanced treatment of the entire shoulder;
a more round shape is formed;
strengthening the upper back;
the rotator cuff will become stronger and stronger;
absence of frequent injuries;
improvement of strength indicators in exercises of other muscle groups.

Standing bent over dumbbell raises - technique

Although the exercise is isolating, it is quite complex in terms of coordination. Therefore, it is very important to learn the correct technique:

Place your feet at shoulder level, hold dumbbells in each hand, and bend down until your body is parallel to the floor. Bend your legs slightly, fix your back evenly with a deflection in the lower back. The arms hang freely towards the floor, palms facing each other. This is your starting position;
Breathe in. Holding your breath, spread your arms to the sides and try to raise them as high as possible. Maintain a slight bend in your elbows. In the top position, you need to make a short delay for better muscle contraction;
Lower the dumbbells in the opposite direction as you exhale. Make the required amount.

Standing bent-over dumbbell raises must be performed strictly following the technical instructions and recommendations.

Maintain a bend in your elbows - you will reduce the likelihood of injury;
keep your back straight and arch in your lower back, this will reduce the risk of injuring your spine. Don't round your back;
perform bent-over movements with the shoulder muscles, pointing your elbows to the side along a vertical plane;
try to lift the dumbbells without contracting your shoulder blades, otherwise you will take the load off the target muscle on the trapezius and rhomboids;
in the difficult phase, hold your breath, this will allow you to make a powerful effort;
use light weight dumbbells; the rear deltoid does not really like heavy loads.

To perform the exercise effectively, you need to follow all these nuances.

Wiring variations

Bent-over dumbbell flyes can be performed in other ways. The main ones:

Seated dumbbell raises

Bent-over dumbbell raises while sitting on a block

Among other things, it will help you, which is aimed at working the target muscle.

To whom, when and how much

Who: Everyone needs to do this exercise, because this is the only way to develop the rear delts;

When: You need to start training with a lagging beam;

How many: 8-12 times, 3 approaches.

To get a rounded shape of your shoulders, you need to evenly pump up all the shoulder muscle bundles, so be sure to do bent-over exercises, because this is the only way you can pump up your rear deltoid.

Masses and relief to you!

This exercise is one of the few that allows you to effectively work out the back head of the delta. In most shoulder exercises, this muscle is practically not used, so lack of attention to this exercise leads to disproportionate development of the shoulders. This exercise is key for developing the posterior deltoid muscles.

Bent-over dumbbell raises are classified as isolation exercises because only the shoulder joints are moved. However, during this exercise, not only the deltoids are worked, but also the muscles that surround them: the long heads of the triceps, trapezius, rhomboids and part of the latissimus dorsi.

Take dumbbells and lean forward, bending your knees slightly. You can perform this exercise with your forehead resting on the edge of the bench, this way you will fix your body, which will prevent you from swaying during the exercise and will increase the load on the deltoid muscles. As you exhale, simultaneously spread your arms to the sides. As you inhale, lower your arms to the starting position.

Take dumbbells, sit on the edge of a bench and lean your body forward. As you exhale, spread your arms out to the sides until they are parallel to the floor (elbows slightly bent). As you inhale, lower the dumbbells to the starting position.

Workout Features

The technique of performing dumbbell raises to the sides, a training video, other exercises for the rear delta, the starting position and muscles being trained, important tips, common mistakes and a variety of exercise are described.

Standing dumbbell raises– this exercise is aimed at developing the youngest sister of the deltoid muscle family. Indeed, if you look at it, it is the smallest of all, but this does not reduce its importance. Without sufficient hypertrophy (muscle enlargement) this is a bunch of deltas, the effect of those very “round balls” of shoulders is not achieved, or rather they will be if you look at a person from the front, but from the side it will be completely different and so dear readers, enough words, let’s get down to business :

Muscles involved

The main load is the posterior bundle, additional load is the trapezius and rotator cuff muscles.

Initial position

Take dumbbells in your hands and slightly bend your elbows, place your feet shoulder-width apart, bend your legs slightly, keeping them tense, move your buttocks back a little and tilt your body forward so that the angle between the floor and your back is about 60 degrees.

We keep our back straight, our shoulders are back, our eyes are looking at the floor, our grip is neutral, that is, our hands with dumbbells are looking at our torso.

Technique for performing dumbbell raises while standing

Having taken the correct starting stance, begin to raise the dumbbells to the side, lifting them up, raising the dumbbells to shoulder level, and the shoulders should rise above shoulder level, while the palms turn back during the movement, with the little finger up. At the top point we do not pause and immediately return to the starting position back.

To achieve the best result, do the same, but rest your forehead on a soft surface, and make your back parallel to the floor (the angle between the floor and your back is 45 degrees), this will increase the load on the rear delts, while relieving the load on the lower back.

Don’t forget about breathing, remember that there are negative (putting effort on the muscle) and positive (relaxing the muscle) phases of movement, therefore exhale during the negative, and inhale during the positive.

Common wiring mistakes

When lifting the dumbbells to the top point, the body rises up; with all your might, hold it in the same position as at the beginning of the movement;

Never tilt your head forward too much, as you round your back and the load goes to the middle of your back;

Do not raise your shoulders or contract your shoulder blades, you should feel the rear deltoid, do not raise your elbow above shoulder level.

Many people doing bent-over dumbbell raises do not bend their elbows, this is a GREAT MISTAKE, the elbows should be slightly bent, this relieves tension in the elbow joints and the load on the rear delts is felt better.

At the top of the exercise, the elbows point back. Another mistake, they must look up and not back; if that doesn’t work, take less weight and bend over even more.

When lifting dumbbells, do not move your elbows back; your elbows should rise approximately in line with the rear deltoid. If you raise your elbows at the level of the middle of your back, part of the load will go to the lower and middle part of the trapezius;

Do not throw dumbbells at the beginning of the movement, the load on the deltoids will decrease, which will lead to a decrease in the effect of the exercise, take less weight and do it correctly.

Many people do exercises with straight legs, this is a mistake, you need to bend them a little, thanks to this it is easier to keep your back in a straight position.

Type of wiring

Everything is the same as standing, but sitting on a gymnastic bench, while the knees are brought together and pressed tightly against each other;

You can’t see the muscles, so you don’t need to pump them? Wrong. The posterior bundle of the deltoid muscle is not just some small thing, but also an important link in the prevention of injuries. Bench presses, rows, deadlifts, and even squats become safer when the rear delts are well developed. In addition, the shoulder girdle looks more massive and harmonious if they are pumped up. And your posture is more attractive. Developed posterior deltoids help to expand the shoulders and protect the cervical spine from overload during normal sedentary work. Bent-over dumbbell raises are a movement that develops this part of the deltoids and improves posture. How to do it correctly?

The rear deltoids don't just move your arm behind your back. They move it up. When breeding, it is important to remember this and move the forearms back and up, but not towards the ears, in order to prevent the trapezius from reaching the weight.

Split rear delt exercises can be done both on the back day and on the bench press day. Together with the back, it makes sense to pump it up, because the rhomboid, trapezius and latissimus will already get tired, and there is a greater chance of getting an isolated load.

Important: the rear delta can be trained at the end of the session, as this does not provoke its overload and injury

The fly is the last exercise in the plan, before the press. This allows you to achieve full muscle development and avoid wasting time on activities that do not lead to results.

Why shouldn't you do the rear delt as your first exercise? If you plan to bench press on this day, this will affect stabilization and may lead to a shift in trajectory. On back day, it is quite difficult to perform this exercise technically correctly first. Stronger lats and diamonds will “pull the blanket over themselves” and the athlete simply will not receive the desired load.

Bent-over raises should be done by both men and women to avoid poor posture and shoulder pain after push-ups. By the way, an underdeveloped posterior deltoid is a common reason why a person cannot stabilize his shoulders in the starting position in a plank or push-up, and performs the exercise with a technical error.

Technique: standing bent over fly

The exercise can be done either standing or lying face down on a bench. They often make a mistake - they advise bending 45 degrees to the axis of the spine or to the floor. This results in the inclusion of stabilizers and diamonds rather than deltoids. The tilt should be complete - the spine is in a plane parallel to the floor.

The movement itself looks like this:

Take light dumbbells, since you only need to pull them with one small muscle;
Full tilt is performed as above;
The athlete slightly bends his elbows and brings his elbows up, just above the plane of the floor;
The shoulders do not pull towards the ears and do not move from their neutral position;
At the top, fixation occurs for 3-5 seconds to feel the muscle;
Dumbbells smoothly lower down

This movement requires a good knowledge of muscle anatomy and “body feel.” Look in the atlas where the rear deltoid is located, and if it does not work during the swing, you should pay attention to analyzing the errors.

Technical errors

Some aspects of the technique contribute to pumping up non-target muscle groups and overloading the joints, so they should be avoided:

Slight forward lean. This is the reason for the load shifting to the middle deltoids and trapezius. This is how non-target muscles are trained, and it is possible to overload the middle deltas, which already work perfectly in all types of standing presses and swings;
Hump in the chest. Some trainers mistakenly advise arching your chest upward to take the load off your lats, but this turns on the abs and makes it impossible to bend with the required amplitude and swing the dumbbells to the desired height. As a result, the athlete pumps the static abs and trapezius, but not the rear deltoids;
Lack of control of working muscles. This is the most common mistake made by those doing the movement for the first time. They try to “swing higher” at the expense of the diamonds, or they simply take weight that is not their own, which cannot be lifted with the rear delts;
Shift of shoulders to ears. This is the classic “trapeze row” that most fitness beginners perform. It is typical for those who work in sedentary jobs and have hyperdevelopment of the trapezius. You need to ensure that your forearms move in the same trajectory. If a person has hypertonicity and cannot help but engage the trapezius, it is recommended to lightly stretch them before starting exercises on the rear deltoid;
Elbow pull back. This movement is reminiscent of bringing your shoulder blades together with dumbbells. Many people do just that, since the rhomboid and latissimus muscles are stronger and pull the load. The deltoids simply do not have time to turn on, and the person does not get any effect from the training

All mistakes can be avoided if you perform the exercise slowly, under control and with light weight. Even if the description says that this is a “swing,” there is no need to literally “swing” due to inertia. Move more smoothly, and try not to work by swinging your body. You must initially stand in such a way that there is no heel-to-toe roll during movement.

This exercise option is ideal for those who cannot keep their body straight and not sway. It allows you to stabilize the position and work more isolated:

You need to take light dumbbells so that your palms face each other and the bars are parallel;
Sit on the edge of the bench, place your arms along your body;
Bend forward, placing your stomach and chest on your thighs;
Raise your arms to the “forearm perpendicular to the spine” position;
By contracting the rear deltas, perform a swing;
Move your elbows up, not back;
Lower the dumbbells

How many repetitions should I do? Typically, isolated non-strength exercises are done for 10-12 repetitions or more if more detailed muscle development is required. But you need to understand that athletes are individual, and more repetitions may be required if the predominant development of muscle fibers is different.

We always exhale with effort, so it should be done when the weight rises and not falls. It is a mistake to think that the athlete lowers the weight as he exits. True, it is in this position that it is difficult to breathe fully, since the chest lies on the hips and it will not be possible to draw a lot of air into the chest.

Beginners really dislike this exercise for one simple thing. You need to start learning how to do it either without weights or with half a kilogram dumbbells. The goal of the first rear delt workout is to find it in your body and learn to feel its work, and not to lift the maximum possible weight.

Over time, you need to add weights. Sometimes it is advised to add 1-2 kg every week, but this may not be justified for all athletes. It is important here to achieve a burning sensation in the working muscle, and a feeling of “failure” by 10-12 repetitions, and not just move using a linear progression and not pay attention to “conventions” such as changing the angle of the body, and “reaching” the weight with your back.

How often should you train your rear delts? Usually in fitness training it is pumped once a week. If an athlete does bench press, you can work it every bench press workout, but then the volume should be reduced from 4 working sets to 2, and the weights chosen are very light.

This exercise can be replaced by raising the arms in the butterfly machine, sitting facing the back of the machine, if there are no small dumbbells in the gym, or the athlete is not yet very flexible and cannot perform a full-amplitude tilt. Facelifts are not a complete replacement, they work the rhomboids more, and are a hybrid exercise for the shoulders.

Bent-over dumbbell raises can be performed on the back of the shoulder, or on the upper part of the pectoral muscles. Both exercises have the same name, but fundamentally different techniques. We will talk about the most common option, which means bent-over dumbbell raises - this is training the posterior bundle of the deltoid muscles of the shoulder.

Need to know

The exercise we are considering is designed to work out the rear deltoids. The back of the deltoid muscles allows the arms to move up and back. Without these muscles, the mobility of the arm would be incomplete.

Bent-over dumbbell lateral raises are an exercise that makes sense to be done last in the workout. Despite the fact that it is actually intended for the shoulders, it is usually performed on the day of the back, since in the independent version it loses all meaning.

The rear deltoids are not as vulnerable as the middle or front deltoids, so they can be exercised even after heavy load on the upper back.

For example, today you did pull-ups, block rows, biceps curls. Finish the workout with a bent-over exercise. Do 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps.

If you experience pain while moving your arm up and back, you should not do bent over dumbbell swings. Let the deltoid heal, then you can do such wiring.

If performed incorrectly, the load from the necessary muscles goes to the trapezius, round and rhomboid muscles. This will prevent you from achieving posterior shoulder hypertrophy.

Technique: standing bent over fly

If all the benches are occupied, you can do the exercise while standing in front of a mirror. It is important that you see yourself in the reflection.

Take 2 dumbbells weighing 3-4 kg (believe me, if you are a beginner, this is more than enough).

Stand at a distance of 1–1.5 meters in front of the mirror.
Feet shoulder-width apart, feet parallel. Bend your knees slightly and lean your torso toward your hips. Keep your back straight, but do not raise your shoulders. The trapezoid should not be turned on. It is advisable to bend to an angle of 45–60 degrees relative to the floor.
Fix your gaze straight, to do this, slightly raise your head up.
The dumbbells need to be rotated so that their handles are oriented parallel to the feet. Bend your arms slightly at the elbows, fix the angle.
Remember that your elbows will need to move upward. Therefore, when you start moving your arms to the sides, turn your arms so that your elbows are pointing towards the ceiling.
Try not to squeeze your shoulder blades together - work purely with the posterior deltoid muscles.
Raise your arms until they are parallel to the floor. Hold this position for 1-2 seconds and 5-10 seconds on the last repetition.

From the outside, you look like a bird flapping its wings.

Bent over dumbbell lateral raises are a very subtle exercise. Minor deviations from correct technique will render the training useless. Therefore, let's look at the most common mistakes and what can happen as a result.

Errors

These points of error can make the exercise ineffective and harm your health:

Small tilt angle. In this position, the middle bundle of deltas works. If you want to pump it up, you need to do other exercises, for example, standing dumbbell flyes.
The elbows are turned back - in this position the necessary part of the shoulder is not loaded again. Elbows should look straight up, at the ceiling, at the sky. Keep an eye on this.
Arms straight - other back muscles are involved in the work, although you were only going to pump the back of the shoulder. Why do you need this?
When the weight is heavy, the arms bend during the exercise. The angle at the elbow joint should be fixed at all times. If you feel that you cannot perform a single repetition (or few) without curling your arms, take a lighter weight.
For beginners, it is difficult to tense the desired muscle; they do not know (because they have not yet felt) what should work in a particular exercise and what should not. Therefore, they swing in an inclined position in such a way that they strain their entire back. The correct technique and awareness of how to work will come later along with training experience.
Round back. You are in a slanted position. If you round your back, the load will fall on your lower back, which may not end very well. The correct position for this exercise is a bend in the lower back.

Bent over swings while sitting on a bench

For those who find it difficult to swing dumbbells to the sides while bending over in a standing position, an easier option was invented - sitting on a bench. It places your torso on your knees (literally).

The technique is like this:

Find a bench, take small dumbbells.
Sit on the edge facing the mirror. Bring your knees together.
Lean forward with your back straight. Reach your chest to your knees and stop in this position.
Your chest rests on your lap. In this pose, you reach 60–70 degrees of inclination relative to the plane of the floor.
From this position, you will reach your hands to the floor. That is, the dumbbells are on the floor on either side of you.
Take them and begin to lift them, trying to turn your elbows towards the ceiling. Without this, you will download something else.
Do 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps. Don't forget to warm up well before the exercise. The rear deltoids can also be pulled. The muscle is small, but the force it creates is quite large.

Don’t forget to breathe correctly when doing dumbbell swings while sitting: when we raise our hands, we exhale, when we lower them, we inhale.

In this position, the knees press on the chest, making it difficult to breathe fully. Therefore, try not to lie completely on your knees.

Subtleties of weight selection

For the first workout, you need to take the smallest weight available in the gym. Usually it is 1–2 kg. Don’t be shy – your task is to develop the technique. And all this is worked out on light weights.

For the second workout, that is, in a week (it is better to train the rear deltoids once every 6-7 days). You will already take 3–4 kg. In the first month it is better not to chase the scales, as well as later. Work in a way that makes you feel comfortable. Let your body remember the necessary movements.

When adding weights, make sure that the dumbbell raises are performed correctly! If your arms begin to bend more, you cannot move them to the desired position - the weight is heavy.

This is an isolated shoulder exercise and is not a strength exercise. That is, regardless of whether you do bent-over dumbbell flyes with 15 kg dumbbells or 5 kg, your task is to do everything efficiently and get the maximum benefit. Then the effectiveness will be maximum.

If you don’t have back problems and have good stretching, then do bent-over dumbbell raises while standing. The sitting option is more comfortable, but relaxes your back.