Best Exercise for Rear Delts
The rear delts are a very important muscle that most people overlook. If you neglect your rear deltoids, your shoulder and back development will never be complete. More importantly, you’ll also be at risk of shoulder injury.
Not to mention, strengthening your rear delts is a great way to improve posture. Great posture is so important in portraying confidence and positive energy to those around you.
If you haven’t read my article: How to Get Big Shoulders Without Steroids – The Magic of Heavy Overhead Pressing this will be the bread and butter of your shoulder development.
The fact of the matter is, building great shoulders comes down to…
- Getting really strong at overhead pressing (reverse pyramid style)
- Getting in a lot of volume on lateral raises (rest pause style)
But like we just mentioned, you cannot neglect your rear delts, they are what tie everything together.
Here are a couple pictures of my back development. Draw your attention to the back of the shoulders, this is where the rear delts are located. Well developed rear delts will give your shoulders the round and full look.
This Is Best Exercise For Rear Delts
The best rear delts exercise is the suspension band face pull + external rotation. No other exercise activates my rear delts to the same degree as the suspension band rear delt exercise. You can perform this exercise by hooking up suspension bands to any high stable point.
How To Fit This Rear Delt Exercise Into Your Workout Routine
I recommend performing 3-4 sets of this exercise for 15-20 reps 2x per week. After a few short weeks you’ll start to notice the difference in your shoulder development, shoulder health and overall posture.
This exercise could also replace the bent over flyes in the Greek God Workout B routine.
If you don’t have access to one of these suspension bands, you could always do bent over dumbbell flyes, cuban presses, or facepulls to effective build your rear delts.
Your Kino Question For The Day: How can you use this exercise to improve your rear delts? Do you currently train your rear delts specifically? Let me know in the comments below.
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How can it be you say this exercise hit’s your rear delt best, but in your training routine your telling us to use bent over flyes?
– Thomas
There are multiple exercises you can do to hit your rear delts. Bent over flyes is the more accessible variation because not everyone has suspension bands at their gym.
Greg, would you perform these seated or standing?
Thanks!
You have to be bent over so you can do them standing or lying on an incline bench.
Greg, I just want to say you do a great job of following up with your blog followers. This post is over 2.5 years old and you still replied to my question. You are a huge resource for me and please keep up the great work.
Thanks man, really appreciate it!
When doing the rear delt flyes, do your shoulders have to be pushed forward/down, og is it ok to squeeze the shoulder blades together? Thanks in advance man !
This exercise is the only one i have real problems with, i have a really hard time feeling it, and my posture and rear delt size shows this .
Not really sure what you mean. I think you’re thinking about it too much. Keep your shoulders pushed down and in place. Don’t let them come up and forward.
What do you think is the best exercise for overall back development? pullups / chinups or bentover rows ? and which of those are better for strength gains ?
best regards
Pull ups are probably slightly better than chin ups in terms of total back development. Chin ups I feel are an overall better exercise because they work the biceps extraordinarily well and they are performed with a better range of motion usually. Strength gains are consistent in both variations. Bent over rows don’t come close to pull ups / chin ups in my opinion.
Thanks for the reply Greg, you truely have an amazing physique !
Take care
Awesome article greg,
Question what were your bodyfat %’s in the top 2 pictures (where you pose) and the one in the video.
cheers
@Perez
In that picture I am around 175 lbs and roughly 10% body fat.
Really cool exercise that I don’t recall seeing. I don’t have suspension bands but think I could the same type of exercise using gymnastics rings. Do you perform your compound training first and then this exercise so that your muscles are more fatigued?
Yeah gymnastic rings would definitely work for that exercise!
If I’m hitting pressing movements at the gym (incline, bench or shoulder press) sometimes I’ll warm up with some light rotator cuff /rear delt exercises. I definitely find this helps reduce chance of injury. If I use the suspension band face pull + external rotation to warm up with than I’ll make it really easy and avoid going to failure.
I usually either perform the suspension band face pull + external rotation on its own at the end of my chest/back workout. Or sometimes I will perform it immediately after cable rows or barbell rows as a super set. The horizontal row super set with rear delts is what strength coach Joe Defranco uses in a lot of his workout programs.
Hey Greg! I have a question about BCAA. I heard from some people that you should take it before a workout.
When should you take it and what are the benefits of it?
also how much and is there a brand you recommend?
thankyou, this talk about BCAA really confused me
Looking ripped man.
Your shoulder width to waist ratio must be crazy.
Thanks man! Thats the key. According to attraction science girls are wired to feel physical attraction to a man with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. The ideal ratio is a shoulder to waist ratio of 1.618:1
Not sure if I’m there yet but I must be close.
Great video Greg. Is that your own personal home gym?
For rear delts, I do reverse rear flys and find those to be very effective. I’m looking into getting my own TRX system as well so I’ll make sure to give that exercise a try.
Thanks Srdjan!
Yeah thats my home gym. Not bad eh.
The suspension bands are awesome. So much you can do with it. I recommend going with a knock off brand. A lot of fitness stores are selling knock off brands that are like 40 or 50 bucks. Compare that to the TRX which is like $120
Many diet soft drinks contain aspartame. Is aspartame bad for muscle development?
I can’t say that aspartame is bad for muscle development. However I can say with certainty that aspartame is bad for overall health and should be avoided.
I usually recommend lower reps for building strength and muscle density with most exercises (compound especially).
However rear delts are a small muscle group and respond better for higher reps. Its very hard to stimulate the rear delts with less than 8 reps.
why high reps? thank you