[Music]

okay welcome everyone to a new episode

of technique Tuesday this week we're

going to be looking at the most

effective exercises and training

techniques for targeting the rear delts

but before we get into the movements

themselves let's have a quick look at

the biomechanics and anatomy involved

first so the primary function of the

rear delt is transverse shoulder

abduction basically when you move your

arm out to the side in the horizontal

plane like you would in a reverse fly it

was the same basic movement pattern that

you'll see on the basic rowing

variations like the Pendley row where

you have the arms moving out to the side

as the elbow bends so while the rear

delts will be highly active in compound

pulling exercises such as the row EMG

data from button natal shows that

isolation exercises such as the reverse

PEC deck tend to outperform compound

exercises like the seated row for the

rear delts which has led dr. Brett

Contreras to conclude that quote

isolation exercises for the rear delts

kick the out of compound exercises so

while you certainly can grow a decent

set of rear delts by just doing heavy

rows on their own I think it's important

to include some isolation exercises to

really maximize their development now

another important but often neglected

function of the rear delts is external

rotation that's basically rotating your

arm outward and because of this I would

say my single favorite rear delt

exercise would have to be the rope face

pole because it combines transverse

abduction and external rotation so there

are two different ways you can set this

up and they're both good but we'll cover

the main way first so for this variation

you're gonna set the cable up at

shoulder height and grab the handles

with a neutral grip so basically your

thumbs should be in contact with the

handles not your pinkies take a stable

stance a few feet back from the cable

machine and slightly retract your

shoulder blades so your upper back is in

a nice and strong starting position and

from here you want to focus on driving

your elbows and back as you

simultaneously pull the rope toward your

forehead and although this may happen

naturally you also want to think about

depressing your shoulder blades

throughout the positive so basically

think about tucking your shoulder blades

down which is also going to get some of

the trap musculature involved and help

keep the shoulder in a Morse

your lifting position and the negative

is essentially a reversal of the

positive where you're gonna let the rope

come forward and down under control

while keeping your shoulder blades in

that secure position and this variation

is also great for strengthening the

rotator cuff and it's a fantastic

assistance exercise to include on a push

day to help balance out the pushing

demand on the shoulders and can help

correct front to back shoulder and

balances and might actually help correct

forward slow chain posture issues as

well so for this variation because we're

isolating the rear delt and rotator cuff

muscles I like to use lighter weight for

something around 15 to 20 reps okay so

another spin on this is to set the cable

up at eye level and pull the rope

straight back toward your chin without

the external rotation component or

rather squeezing your shoulder blades

together and driving the elbows back and

this variation on the face pole can be

thought of as a high row where you're

essentially getting the traps and

rhomboids more involved as well and

because this variation is getting more

muscles involved including the biceps as

you pull the weight back I prefer to

load it a bit heavier so more in the 12

to 15 reps own and I'll personally often

do these half lying so I can brace my

torso against the floor allowing me to

go heavier without losing balance now

not everyone has access to cables or a

rope and sometimes it's smart to just

switch things up anyway as you can also

do the face pull with dumbbells or you

bend over at the hips until you're close

to parallel with the floor keeping a

natural arch in your lower back and then

you just copy the same a basic movement

pattern as the external rotation face

pole or you pull your thumbs toward your

ears and whether you're doing these with

dumbbells or the rope one of the best

cues I like to use is thinking about

performing the movement as a we're

double biceps pose where you're

basically lifting your arms up and

flexing your biceps from the back so

here we're doing the same basic thing

except we're bent over and have

dumbbells in our hands

one other exercise that I really like

for the rear delts is the reverse PEC

deck and as we saw in the EMG results

from button natal the reverse PEC deck

shows the highest rear delt activation

out of all the exercises tested although

they didn't include a face pull so maybe

that would have been better who knows

but with the reverse PEC deck you're

basically locked into position so you

can do pure shoulder abduction without

external

tation which is nice for really

isolating and burning out the rear delts

now interestingly research from

Schoenfeld and colleagues found that

using a neutral grip with the shoulders

more externally rotated led to more

activation of the rear delt maybe

because as we already said external

rotation is one of the functions of the

rear delt but with that said some

subjects did see better results with the

pronated or palms down grip and I

personally find I can get a better mind

muscle connection this way so my best

advice is to either periodically switch

back and forth between a neutral and a

pronated grip or go with what allows you

to feel your rear delts firing the best

of it either way just like the cable

variation rounding your scapula forward

via protraction and thinking about

swinging the weight out instead of back

might help improve the mind muscle

connection with your rear delts another

solid rear delt movement worth

mentioning is the bent over reverse

dumbbell fly and I do like this movement

however similar to the dumbbell chest

fly you run into the problem of reaching

maximum tension when the dumbbells are

furthest out to the sides at the top

with tension then decreasing throughout

the rest of the range of motion until

there's just about zero tension on the

rear delts at the bottom so to work

around this I like to stop the dumbbells

slightly short at the bottom and keep

more of a constant tension groove going

and about the top 3/4 of the range of

motion and again you want to think about

lifting the dumbbells out in an arc

rather than back which is going to shift

emphasis away from the traps and on to

the rear delts and as for grip position

again you want to pick a grip that feels

comfortable for you however I find that

a pronated palms down grip allows me to

feel my rear delts firing the best now I

would say the most common error that I

see with rear delt training is basically

turning the movement into a row by

retracting too much remember that to hit

the rear delts we need to be training

transverse abduction so the arms should

be swinging out to the sides not being

pulled straight back so to really target

the rear delts optimally it is important

that you pay close attention to your

form and slow the movement down as much

as needed until you get the mind muscle

connection right so typically just going

wider and paying closer attention is

going to fix this issue ok so guys that

is all that I have for training

technique for the rear delts if you guys

haven't seen my shoulder science

explained

video I'd recommend giving that a watch

that's a little bit of an older video

but all of the information is still very

relevant as you can check that out and

you can also check out my upright row

video if you're interested in hearing my

thoughts on that exercise a lot of

people seem to have missed that video so

I'll put links to both of those over

here and you can check them out now

please leave me a like if you enjoyed

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episodes and I'll see you guys all here

next Tuesday