Subject: Re: Rear delts: BANE OF MY EXISTENCE Date: 11 Sep 91 17:31:48 GMT Sender: news@intelhf.hf.intel.com (News User) Reply-To: hutch@hutch.intel.com (Stephen Hutchison) Anyway, Joe, WRT the question on rear delts: Three things you can do. 1) pre-fatigue them by doing some other back work (like shrugs and bent-over rowing) before you do your reverse flyes 2) find one of those weird benches which is designed to lean over and rest your chest on while you do barbell rows and dumbell flyes - the construction lets you breathe easier and ensures a better angel on the rear delts 3) work on intensity and feel - are you really using rear delt to do the work, or are you bringing the lats and traps and upper delt into it? Get someone to help you figure out the proper flex by having them touch your rear delt, upper delt, traps, and lats in the tie-in area, or if you have sufficiently small bodyfat, watch in mirror. Then tighten things back there until you get only the rear delt flexing, and practice it a few times until you know how it feels. Once you know the feel, you can do the dumbell flyes more strictly. Hutch Subject: Re: Shoulders Date: 13 Jul 92 20:07:10 GMT odin@cats.ucsc.edu (Jon Granrose) writes: >I'm looking for additions to my shoulder routine. I only do shoulder >shrugs, military press and the one where you lift dumbells to the front >from your thighs to shoulder height. Any suggestions? Here are my current favorites in the order that I do them: Clean and Press (as with deadlifts and squats this exercise builds mass), Arnold Presses (has made my delts nicely rounded as well as huge), Behind-the-Neck Presses (on a Smith machine -- another good mass builder), Upright Rows or Shoulder Shrugs (most of my trapezius mass has come from upright rows, but it's nice to mix it up with shoulder shrugs sometimes), Lateral Raises, and Frontal (can't think of a better name) Raises (has really given me a nice shoulder shape). I can't do the same number of sets on all the above exercises because I would be overtraining, so I have to go by feel. For example, if I get a really exhausting workout on cleans and presses, I will probably cut back on Arnold presses and upright rows since I have already worked the muscles involved in these exercises by doing the cleans and presses. >I just started working out five days a week after a month hiatus. >I split my routine into chest, back, legs, arms, shoulders and I work >my abs every day. I'd be interested in hearing what exercises people do >who have split routines in the same manner. I follow the same split except in a little different order. I have thought about working out some body parts more than once a week, but I just can't see how I can do it. I try to do no more than 5 exercises per body part and I am now doing 4 sets of 6-8 reps per exercise. Shoulder day is the only day that I haven't been able to trim down my different exercises because I enjoy them so much. I do shoulders on Mon, so here are my other days. Tue - Squats, Hack Squats, Calf Raises, Leg Curls Wed - Incline, Flat, and Decline Presses (all with dumbbells), Machine Flyes and/or some cable work, and Dumbbell Pullovers Thu - Deadlifts, T-Bar Rows or Dumbbell Rows, Lat Pulldowns (behind the neck), Frontal Pulldowns (again, bad naming -- like a lat pulldown except a small handle is used and the handle is brought down to the top of the chest), and Cable Rows Fri - Standing Barbell Curls, Preacher Curls, Hammer Curls and/or Concentration Curls, Lying Tricep Extensions, Cable Tricep Extensions, and Dumbbell Kickbacks Brian Ackerson brian@odin.scs.uiuc.edu ^ P.S. - Jon, did you notice my machine?----------| From: brian@odin.scs.uiuc.edu (Brian Eugene Ackerson) Subject: Re: Shoulders Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1992 20:37:32 GMT gmark@cbnewse.cb.att.com (gilbert.m.stewart) writes: >Arnold Presses? Never heard of them. Details? Why are they so >good? TIA. I just just deleted a file that I used to describe them to people via email. :( Anyway, Arnold presses are like a regular standing or seated dumbbell shoulder press with these variations. The dumbbells are held in the plane bisecting the plane of the shoulders and the plane perpindicluar to the shoulders (in other words, at a 45 degree angle). The hands are rotated as the weight is pressed up so that the dumbbells are in the plane of the shoulders at the end of the movement, and the dumbbells are pointed slightly down to the head (like you are pouring a pitcher of water on you head). Then, the opposite movement is done to lower the weights. The advantage of this way of doing shoulder presses is that it stresses the front and heads of the delts. By doing these presses, I have not only gotten mass, but it is shapely and rounded (just like my buttocks :) - I don't know. It just seemed to fit). I have noticed that the exerices that give you a fuller movement (like these presses or any dumbbell presses) build your size and give your muscles a totally different shape. Brian Ackerson brian@odin.scs.uiuc.edu Subject: Re: Shoulders Date: 31 Jul 92 18:06:17 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 42 >From: mukund@jaguar.ece.cmu.edu (Mukund Sivaraman) > >|> dumbbell shoulder exercises (in case my first reply didn't make >|> it to the list) include: >[stuff deleted] >|> dumbbell bentover lateral raises (rear head) >janice, how do you do these? i'll attempt to describe, but it would be more easily understood by checking an issue of Muscle and Fitness or Flex! :-) bend at the waist so your upper body is parallel to the ground. bend your knees. start with your arms straight down, wrists/palms facing each other, dumbbell in each hand. face a mirror and look straight ahead to watch your form. slowly raise your hands to each side, straight up, keeping the elbows slightly bent but stiff, and keeping the wrists facing each other. raise hands far enuf so that arms are straight out to each side, but not higher than shoulders. squeeze at the top. *concentrate* and make the rear head of the shoulders do all the work! don't swing the weights, and don't let your arms do the work! like i said, it's probably better understood if you see a picture in a muscle magazine... they are similar to dumbbell lateral raises, only bending over to stress the rear head! it's the only exercise to directly hit the rear head, which is often *the* lagging delt head! sure, presses are supposed to work the rear head, but they tend to hit the front and middle heads more (at least on me), leaving the rear head in the dust! oh, one more thing, start with light weights. these are tougher than standing lateral raises, and MUCH tougher than shoulder presses. i use LOTS more weight for presses and lateral raises! ;-) good luck Subject: Re: Shoulders Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1992 15:12:42 GMT In article <9207311820.AA13608@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> SSDC2@BROWNVM.BROWN.EDU (J Green) writes: >>From: mukund@jaguar.ece.cmu.edu (Mukund Sivaraman) >> >>|> dumbbell shoulder exercises (in case my first reply didn't make >>|> it to the list) include: >>[stuff deleted] >>|> dumbbell bentover lateral raises (rear head) >>janice, how do you do these? > >i'll attempt to describe, but it would be more easily understood >by checking an issue of Muscle and Fitness or Flex! :-) > >bend at the waist so your upper body is parallel to the ground. >bend your knees. start with your arms straight down, wrists/palms >facing each other, dumbbell in each hand. face a mirror and look >straight ahead to watch your form. >slowly raise your hands to each side, straight up, keeping the elbows >slightly bent but stiff, and keeping the wrists facing each other. >raise hands far enuf so that arms are straight out to each side, but >not higher than shoulders. squeeze at the top. >*concentrate* and make the rear head of the shoulders do all the work! >don't swing the weights, and don't let your arms do the work! > >like i said, it's probably better understood if you see a picture in >a muscle magazine... >they are similar to dumbbell lateral raises, only bending over to >stress the rear head! it's the only exercise to directly hit the >rear head, which is often *the* lagging delt head! sure, presses >are supposed to work the rear head, but they tend to hit the front >and middle heads more (at least on me), leaving the rear head in >the dust! > >oh, one more thing, start with light weights. these are tougher >than standing lateral raises, and MUCH tougher than shoulder presses. >i use LOTS more weight for presses and lateral raises! ;-) > Ah, I just couldn't help but throw my 2 cents in here: 1) I agree with everything you said above, except for one *little* thing: If you are going to do *standing bent over laterals*, the exercise is "infinitely" more effective (and comfortable) if you stare at your feet and not in the mirror! I "discovered" this after many, many months of doing them looking in the mirror (see 2) below). And everyone that I've told this to, and who tried it, agrees. Looking in the mirror puts alot of stress on your traps and neck, when you should be working just the rear delt. 2) If you want to look in the mirror (and I did), the best way to work rear delts is by doing them laying on a slightly inclined bench. This keeps the stress of your neck,, traps *and* lower back. Another point: if you do 'em standing, keep your back straight! This is best accomplished by sticking your butt out and slightly arching your back as you bend at the waist. 3) I have also found that working rear delts on the cable crossover machine is extremely effective. For those who don't know how to do these: basically, you grab the right cable in your left hand and the left cable in your right hand, cross your arms and bend over at the waist (as described above in 2) ). At the start of the motion, make sure that your palms are facing your legs. As your hands cross each other, rotate your hands so that your palms are facing each other. The reason you do this is to avoid the excruciating pain of ramming the cable handles into your wrists! I'm sure you would've discovered soon enough, but I figured I'd spare you some pain! 4) My gym just purchased a pec-deck/rear-delt machine and it is incredible! You can't look in a mirror, but the pad, again, keeps your back and traps from feeling alot of the pressure. You can really nuke your delts with this machine, if you've got one in your gym. Back to work... Ron p.s. One thing Janice said can't be emphasized enough: Keep the weight low enough so that you can execute 8-12 strict (arms only *slightly* bent) reps. This is important. Don't be tempted to grab the 40's and execute 8 "ape-like" reps. By this I mean having your arms bent at nearly a 90 degree angle and swinging the weight up and down. You ain't working anything buy your ego when you do it this way. From: cecchinr@gehrig.cs.rpi.edu (Ron Cecchini) Subject: Re: Growth Potential (was Re: Bodybuilders with weak .......) Date: 9 Feb 93 23:09:17 GMT In article <1993Feb9.210945.8986@cbnewsk.cb.att.com> krw@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (keith.r.smith) writes: >Same here! I feel that I am "living proof". I am a rather light-boned, >slim-framed individual (ie., long limbs, long neck, and short, narrow torso). >If you look up the word "ectomorph" in your Webster's, you will probably >see my picture. When I first started training, I mean =ground zero=, in >eleventh grade, I weighed all of about 130 lbs., and bore no resemblence >whatsoever to an athlete. I did gymnastics for two years, I pole-vaulted, >and I did weights. By the time that I graduated, I weighed about 147 >(at a height of 5'10"), I had a 32" vertical leap, and in terms of upper >-body strength, I was one of the strongest in my high school. I had gained >four inches on my chest, 2 inches each on my upper-arms and thighs, and >_lost_ an inch on my waist, and some off the hips. I also had these >"hellified" forearms from all the time that I spent on the rings. >After two years, I had remade my body, and looked quite like an athlete. >Today, nine months into my "comeback" (I have this bad habit of periodically >falling "off the wagon"), at age 37, my quads are bigger _and_ my waist is >smaller than when I graduated high school. I have a 14" "drop" between my >chest and my waist, with an obvious V-taper. I weigh about 154, at 5'10.75. >I still have some weak points, but they are responding pretty well to training. >These days, I am attacking the delts and upper traps (my particular weak-links) >with a vengeance. At one point, I had all but "written them off", and I would >be envious of the delt/trap development of one of my buddies who also happens >to be a "little guy". Through all of our adult lives, he has been about >10 lbs. lighter than me (due mostly to having lighter quads/lats/pecs), and >yet he has these hellified delts and upper traps. I had convinced myself >that this was all genetic...... then I started to pay attention to how he >trained his shoulders. I followed him through his shoulder-training routine >one day..... what an incredible "burn"! Maybe this isn't all genetic after >all! Last fall, I just _decided_ that I am gonna' have good delts/upper-traps, >no excuses. They are responding! I figure on being about 160-165 by the time >my physique catches up with my vision. Sure, this is still tiny by pro >bodybuilder standards, but I will have a near-perfect physique. In the end, >isn't that what it's all about? > >Keith R Bravo! If Kelly is listening, heres one of those "testimonials"... As far as traps go, go nuts! Mine were ok, but since I've started beefing up the intensity on 'em (shrugging 4 plates!) they've made definite improvements. I know I know - I too don't like way-too-huge traps, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there (I ain't in danger yet)! For shoulder width, don't waste too much time on presses, unless you really think you need it. Presses, as you know, work more of the front head then anything else. Use 'em as warmups or something, and go nuts with laterals for 8-12 reps per set with *GOOD* form. I like using wrist straps with laterals on the "heavier" (35 pounds is heavy for me) sets - and I like being spotted once in a while on my heaviest set (the 35s). Of course, being spotted while doing laterals looks kind of funny, but I don't really give crud. As far as what good lateral form is, lets just say that it does *NOT* look like football jump-n-jacks! Some of you know what I mean... Lean forward 5-10 degrees, have slight bend in arms, and do the "pouring" thang (that everyone mentions) as you bring your arms up. You elbows shouldn't be higher than your delts at the top of the motion (otherwise, you're using your traps), and your pinkies should be higher than your thumbs from doing the pouring thang. Ron From: cecchinr@hornsby.cs.rpi.edu (Ron Cecchini) Subject: Re: Traps & Rear Delts Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 15:57:34 GMT In article "Ryan E. Rasmussen" writes: >Two questions: > >1. How can the traps between the shoulder blades be developed? I have >no meat between my shoulder blades, which are developed from chins and >rows. Shrugs seem to work the traps only up by the neck. As Dave Fisher in MuscleMag said recently: I've got one word for you: shrug! I've got another word for you: heavy! Heavy barbell shrugs will develop your whole traps. There are a few variations and techniques, but just stick to the standard standing barbell shrug. >2. I do bent-over lateral raises for rear delts, but just can't seem to >feel my delts being worked. Any tips or alternate exercises? You're probably working more of your rhomboids and major/minor teres instead of your delts. This is because you're probably going too heavy and bending your arms too much. Lighten the load. Keep your arms nearly straight, with maybe only a 5 or 10 degree bend to them. Concentrate on the rear delt. SOmetimes it helps if you have someone poke your rear delt so you know where you are supposed to be feeling it. Do these bent at the waist (standing or seated) and keep your head down (look at the floor). At the top of the motion, it helps if your pinkies are higher than your thumbs (just like doing side laterals). >Ryan > Ron From: glex@calamity.cray.com (Jeff Gleixner) Subject: Re: Traps & Rear Delts Date: 10 Mar 93 22:11:19 GMT > In article , "Ryan E. Rasmussen" writes: > > 2. I do bent-over lateral raises for rear delts, but just can't seem to > > feel my delts being worked. Any tips or alternate exercises? Try to pre-exhaust your rear delts, then do a basic movement. So to the bent-over raises, change the path of your arms so it it hits your delts. After a good set of these move directly to behind-the-head military press. What I've recently been doing is a modified version of the military press. I "clean" the bar from my waist to sholder level, press up, lower behind head, press up, lower to front, then down to waist. This seems to really work the shoulders and traps. -- glex@nitro.cray.com === "Difficult tasks are never easy..." Subject: Re deltoids From: rbowers@csusb (Cosmo) Date: 16 Sep 93 01:04:46 PST One great exercise for the rear (and side) deltoid is the `Lying Side Lateral: In this exercise, you can lay on a bench (or preferably an abdominal board at an incline for extra range-of-motion) on your side with a medium-weight(by your standards) bar-bell lowered in front of you, and almost touching the floor. Start with the weight as low as possible and lift it straight up above your head (Your head should be raised, not lying flat...). ust before the dum-bell is staright above your head, turn your thumb inwards, and twist the wrist so that your thumb is pointing down towards your head. It's importan to get that twist at the top in order to hit the rear deltoid. Really contract them while doing this and you'll feel the pain after about 3-4 sets. Go to failure. This builds the side delts as well. To really isolate the rear delts, you'll need a cable at floor-level to do bent-over cable laterals or seated cross-overs. hope it helps... cheers! From: Thomas Richard Hummel Subject: Re: rear delts. Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1993 23:58:19 -0500 Sue, Before you give up on bent-over lateral raises (which have given me great success.) you might want to check your form to be sure that you're getting everything that you can out of them. If you can do them in front of a mirror. Make sure that you're keeping your head up (DON'T look at the ground.) and when you raise the weights they should go forward enough so that you can just catch the weights out of the corners of your eyes. Make sure that your using moderate weights and use smooth, controlled motions, holding at the top for a second before lowering the weights down. This last part is very important. You don't want to be flinging the weights up. Since most people use fairly light weights for this exercise it's easy to cheat your delts by putting a little weight, or momentum into it. By making yourself hold the weight at the top you should keep yourself from doing this. Another way to keep from flinging the weights is to put your chest firmly against your knees in a sitting position and DON'T LET IT MOVE. Hope this all helps. Good luck. -Tom. From: ronbo@arnold.ndhm.gtegsc.com (Ron Cecchini) Subject: Re: Upright Rows??? Date: 10 Mar 1994 20:27:50 GMT In article <1994Mar10.185810.27096@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>, sbbeedle@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Sue Beedle) writes: > I have seen some posts that say upright rows are bad for your shoulders. I > heard that they were suppose to be GOOD for hitting the medial detoids, which > is why I do them. If they don't bother your shoulders, then keep doing them. If they hurt, stop. Uprights are good for hitting the medial delts. Depending on your grip, they can also be a good trap exercise. The closer the grip, the more you'll feel it in the traps. The wider the grip, the more it hits the delts. > Is there another exercise beside for Lateral Raises that hit > the medial deltoid? Surely you know about lateral raises, right? ("Don't call me Shirley.") Anyway, lateral raises (standing or seated) work the medial delts. Shoulder pressing movements also hit the medial delts pretty hard. Plus, it's a "power" exercise; i.e. you can go heavy on it. You can't/won't build huge shoulders by doing just lateral movements. *I* believe you should always do a heavy pressing movement. -- Ron Cecchini - ronbo@arnold.ndhm.gtegsc.com Discipline - Desire - Determination - Dedication I'm Tonya Harding's #1 fan - so watch it! From: ronbo@arnold.ndhm.gtegsc.com (Ron Cecchini) Subject: Re: Rear delt exercise Date: 1 Apr 1994 17:41:39 GMT In article <2nfo40$8i3@panix.com>, spencerc@panix.com (Spencer Cox) writes: > In ADDUNN@AHS.watstar.uwaterloo.ca (Andrea Dunn) writes: > > > >Here's an exercise that might work, using free weights: > > >Sit down on a chair or at the end of a bench with your legs together. Hold > >a free weight in each hand. Bend at the waist so that your chest is resting > >on your thighs (or almost there). With your arms slightly bent, lift your > >arms so that your hands are in line with your shoulders. I think it might > >look like the pec dec, only in reverse and bent over. Remember to keep your > >arms away from the sides of your body, otherwise you'll work your back > >instead. I hope you can picture this - it's much easier to explain in > >person. > > And remember to keep your shoulders "down." I was having problems getting > results here -- turned out I was scrunching my shoulders up and letting my > trapezius do most of the work! Since correcting the problem, I'm making > real progress. Also, keep your head down and look at your feet. It also helps if you rotate your arms forward so that your pinkies are higher than your thumbs at the top of the movement (exactly like when you do standing lateral raises for the medial delts). Finally, hold the dumbbells with your pinkies against the "pinky side" bell. One other rear delts exercise I've started doing (and there really *are* alot of rear delt exercises - sorry, no time to list them again right now) is standing cable laterals for the rear delts - but I don't them behind the back like you might see some people do. Attach the single arm handles to the low pulleys on the cable crossover machine. Stand between the two pulleys, and reach down and grab one handle with the opposite hand. You have to do these one arm at a time. Stand erect and put your other hand on your hip (it just helps to stabilize you a bit). Now, here's the hard part: while maintaining a slight bend in your elbow, bring your arm (which should be in front of and down on your body) up and across your body - but keep that bend in your elbow fixed! Too many people go too heavy on an exercise like this and turn it into a tricep exercise ('cause their arms are bending and extending, and they're heaving the weight all over). You may have to play with the positioning of your body a little, to find that optimal spot where you really feel the exercise in the rear delt. But you want to remember to keep your arm position (i.e. the bend in your elbow) fixed - think of it as a lever or something. The only movement should be in your shoulder joint. Like with the rear delt laterals, keep your shoulders down. Also, you won't be able to go too-too heavy on this exercise - you might even want to try it after doing a more "powerful" rear delt exercise. -- Ron Cecchini - ronbo@arnold.ndhm.gtegsc.com Discipline - Desire - Determination - Dedication I'm Tonya Harding's #1 fan - so watch it! From: jwabik@banzai.netstar.com (Jeff Wabik) Subject: Re: Shoulder (Deltoid) Training Tips? Date: 23 Sep 1994 22:19:22 GMT Eric Alter (alter@sultan.rchland.ibm.com) wrote: : In article , jal22@cornell.edu (Josh Lindenmuth) writes: : |> Does anybody have tips for shoulder/deltoid training? : |> Anything from form, to number of set/reps, to rest between sets, to favorite : |> workout would be great. : |> : I'd like to put my $0.02 in... : The best shoulder exercise is the overhead press. My preference is for : behind the neck version of the overhead press. Behind the neck seems to : take some of the effort off of the anterior delt (3 delt muscle groups I would argue that behind the neck presses place the arms in a position so as to PRIMARILY hit the anterior delt. -- Jeff Wabik E/Mail: jwabik@netstar.com NetStar, Inc. Phone: +1 612 943 8990 Minneapolis, MN FAX: +1 612 943 8939 "Donuts .. Is there anything they can't do?" From: jwabik@banzai.netstar.com (Jeff Wabik) Subject: Re: Shoulder (Deltoid) Training Tips? Date: 23 Sep 1994 16:35:02 GMT smithn@meena.cc.uregina.ca wrote: : Well, my shoulder workouts go like so.... : Clean and Press....I take a pretty heavy weight for this...first, I clean the : weight (if you don't know how to do this ask) and then stop at the top of : the movement *completely*, so that I can't use momentum...then I slowly : press the bar overhead, squeezing the delts at the top This is a good "power" movement.. I'm not sure how good a "bodybuilding" movement this is. Note that it is very difficult to: 1) Maintain good form 2) Hit anything other than the anterior deltoid. I'd recommend any sort of standing movements only for advanced lifters. : Next I do push presses...For these, take a weight you really can't lift and : clean it...bend your knees a bit and use some momentum to start to get the : bar up, then squeeze the delts and lower them slowly... for this exercise, I : do sets of 8, 6, 4, 2, to failure (for the Clean and Press, 5 sets of 8-12) See my comments on the "Clean and Press". This is a good "power" movement, but, the potential for injury to non-advanced lifters is very real. : Next come upright rows...I do these heavy and strict...I take a big dumbbell : and deadlift it to my waist...from here, I keep my grip close and lift the : bar right to my chin, keeping the elbows way out to the sides, to really : hit the delts...be *very* careful on this movement, as I got my first (and : only) bodybuilding injury doing these incorrectly I find that this move places an incredible amount of stress on the wrists, and is difficult to do correctly (without hitting the traps or nailing the anterior deltoid). : I then finish it off with 5 sets of 8-12 dumbbell laterals... My observation is that most people vastly overtrain their delts. The anterior deltoid gets nailed hard for whatever chest work you do (especially if you're doing lots of incline work), and the posterior gets hit hard on back day. As such, I only train my medial deltoid, and I make that same recommendation to others. My delt routine consists of: 1) Strict military presses (to front), sitting bolt upright (on a bench with a vertical back), and taking great care to load the medial deltoid as much as possible. 2) Very strict Arnold presses, taking great care to move the upper arm so as to isolate the medial deltoid. 3) Strict lateral raises. Remember that the delts are a VERY small body part that get worked by EVERY upper body exercise you perform. I'd never do more than 8 sets of delts unless I was trying to break some plateau. Intensity first; Quality (form) second; quantity (weight) third. -Jeff -- Jeff Wabik E/Mail: jwabik@netstar.com NetStar, Inc. Phone: +1 612 943 8990 Minneapolis, MN FAX: +1 612 943 8939 "Donuts .. Is there anything they can't do?" Reply-To: an25653@anon.penet.fi Date: Tue, 1 Nov 1994 19:54:25 UTC Subject: Re: Delts & More Delts From garry Tue Nov 1 11:35:44 1994 Date: Tue, 1 Nov 94 11:35:38 PST From: garry (Garry Holmen) To: garry@mda.ca Subject: Re: Delts & More Delts Newsgroups: misc.fitness Organization: MacDonald Dettwiler, 13800 Commerce Parkway, Richmond, BC, Canada V6V 2J3 Cc: In article <1994Oct31.185012.26981@gallant.apple.com> you write: >>5. The machine where you pull the bar up to your chin and pray the cable >> doesn't break. :-) > >you would get with dumbells. Another great burn is to alternate sets of >upright rows with standing military barbell presses. Get WIDE!!!!!! I think his #5 is the same as an upright row.... But just a word of caution... upright rows are one of the worst exercises for your rotator cuff. If your shoulders constantly are aching or feel like they're dislocating you should probably stop. Talk to any qualified physio and read Health for Life's 7 min rotator cuff solution. Wide grips for bench and overhead press generally reduce the work that the assisting muscles are doing but your shoulders will pay for it in the long run. I'ld suggest restricting your grip width to around shoulder width for most exercises. Garry Holmen garry@mda.ca ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi. From: sparks4664@aol.com (Sparks4664) Subject: Re: Balanced shoulder workout? Any ideas... Date: 8 Jan 1995 11:03:00 -0500 ddean@oasys.dt.navy.mil (David Dean) described his balanced shoulder workout in Message-ID: <3eo46jINNbnn@oasys.dt.navy.mil> As one of the shoulder clickers, I thought I'd comment. Your workout looks alot like mine! First a couple of thoughts on improving isolation of each muscle: Rear delt flys: I do this face down on an incline bench. This supports the body so the back and postural muscles aren't being used. Also you can adjust the angle of incline to vary the location of the most intense muscle contraction. Pausing at the top of the motion also improves intensity, as does not coming down so far as to fully relax the muscle. Lateral raises: Similarly I try to limit the lower end of the range of motion so that I can keep my pinky over my thumb through the whole exercise and never let the muscle relax completely. Very concentrated on medial delt. Front raises? You didn't mention these. Just raise the DBs straight up in front of you from your side. Isolates front delt better than most exercises. Your Bungie pulls are also know as internal and external rotations and work the little muscles of the rotator cuff. Be sure to do them pulling across the body (max stress when arm is 45 deg away from the body) and pulling from the support (max stress when arm is across your stomach). One does the front, the other the back of the cuff. DB Flys: I like to vary the angle of incline/decline in this exercise as well as alternate the "squeeze at top" version with a "twist your pinkies in" (thumbs to the outside of the body) at the top. Each gives a little different stress on the muscle. If you do heavy weights, be careful NOT to twist the pinkies in when your arms are out to your side, or you'll get more than tendonitis! Warming up the shoulder before heavy pressing motions (like bench or dips) is very important. I do two things: Warm up 1 (easy): Take a plate (10-20 lbs) and hang it off the fingers of your right hand. Bend over and brace yourself with your left hand on some equipment. Let the weight hang until you feel the stretch in your shoulder. Then start small circles slowing increasing in radius, clockwise until the shoulder feels warm. Then do circles the other direction. Then switch and warm up the other shoulder. Warm up 2 (harder): This is actually a rehab exercise a freind got after tearing his cuff playing hockey. Using light weight, in the right hand, place your right arm across your body so that the weight is in front of your left hip, palm to the body. Now move your arm slowly, up and out in a big diagonal until the wieght is above your head on the right side of your body, palm forward. (This is the most complicated description of a very natural motion I've ever written!) Then rotate the wrist so that the palm is back and down, and draw your arm slowly back through the diagonal until the wieght is again by your left hip, but with the palm facing out. Repeat several times, then do the other arm. The basic motions trace out a big X in the air. I hope you find some of this helpful. I also found these good as warmups for climbing. I fell in 1993 and shattered my left leg. So I don't think you'll see me on the cliffs again. But good luck! Go Navy! Gary.