Side deltoid exercises

[luv4boxing]

I have never once felt a burn of any kind in my deltoids. Its always in my traps. I have tried everythig (high rep, low rep, cheating, strict, ladders, negatives, odd angles) but nothing works. My traps are over developed and my side and rear delts are pittiful.

Does anyone have any advice or maybe advanced lifts I might not have heard of to help isolate the deltoids from the traps?

[MattyG]

lying lateral raises are good IMO

[denbrkln]

Lateral raises, but position your palms inwards at a 45 degree angle and grip the dumbbell at the end closest to your body (not in the center).

[watermelon_2001]

I've tried doing T-raises recently, and found them to work pretty well. It basically mimics the machine version of a lateral-raise, where you keep a much greater bend in your elbows and force your elbows up to drive the weight. Also a bonus, if you train traps on the same day as delts, is that it works them to a degree too.

[SirWankAlot]

Some Lateral Deltoids excersises include ;

- Upright Rows (they get me burning)
- Lateral Raises

These are the primary Lateral Deltoids excersises, most of the other excersises for this specific muscle group are variations on either one of these.

Source :

exrx.net/Lists/ExList/ShouldWt.html#anchor1933886

[x-ray vision]

Do compound sets of lateral raises and dumbbell shoulder presses in that order. Laterals- Go to failure and use weight that will allow you to perform 10-12. Presses- Go to failure and use weight that will allow you to perform 6-8. Do three or four sets with 1 1/2 mins. rest between. You should feel a burn.

[ZoranM]

You don't need "advanced" lifts whatever they might be.Feeling it in your traps says your doing it wrong.
Learn proper form on lateral raises.

[Beachman]

You don't need "advanced" lifts whatever they might be.Feeling it in your traps says your doing it wrong.
Learn proper form on lateral raises.

lying lateral raises are good IMO

^^^These.

[christos_swc]

You don't need "advanced" lifts whatever they might be.Feeling it in your traps says your doing it wrong.
Learn proper form on lateral raises.

+1
You can't go wrong with lateral raises for building side delts.
Just learn to do it right.

[grumble1]

You can try overhead presses.

[Hellcraft]

Lateral raises and upright rows. If you don't feel that in your delts you're doing it wrong. Post a video for form check.

[TheProgressiveOne]

Just do heavy ass shoulder presses..eat a crap load and it will sort itself out.

[pumplikecuming]

max-ot presses blew up my side delt. Cable side laterals with the cable behind you. And regular old lateral raises with db. It is important to note that you have to get stronger in these exercises. Don't exercise hop and expect to see all these great gains. Get good at 1-2 exercises and keep adding weight. You won't see any type of hypertrophy until you gain all neural gains from the rep range you use, so switching exercises works a different set of fibers and you continuously change what you do...what do you expect....

[Vigilante_Inc]

2 words brah (PRE-EXHAUST)

Hir your traps hard and hit them first. They'll be way less likely to get involved in your shoulder exercises.

Then move on to shoulder presses. Barbell presses are my favorite but I like to alternate week to week wether I use DB's or BB's, then move on to your lateral raises. Do them very super strict and 1 shoulder at a time so you can really focus on the lift. Most important out of all of this is not to just drop the weight. Focus hard on the negative portion of the lift for shoulders. Resist the weight on the way down brah.

[Vigilante_Inc]

max-ot presses blew up my side delt. Cable side laterals with the cable behind you. And regular old lateral raises with db. It is important to note that you have to get stronger in these exercises. Don't exercise hop and expect to see all these great gains. Get good at 1-2 exercises and keep adding weight. You won't see any type of hypertrophy until you gain all neural gains from the rep range you use, so switching exercises works a different set of fibers and you continuously change what you do...what do you expect....

This is good advice. For shoulders you really need to master the basics first. Overhead press, side lateral raises, bentover later raises.

Stick to those 3 for a few months and tell me you dont make some gains. Try and increase the weight you can use with the BB overhead press. Use a weight you can get for 8 reps until you can get it for 12 then bump the weight up until you can get that new weight 12 then bump it again. Ans super strict form is more important on lat raises than the weight you use. Theres lots of vids of huge body builders using like 35's but they're like 5 degree bend at the elbow and super strict. There delts do all the work. No momentum no traps just their delts

[LetsGoHeavy]

try seated raises with dumbells and doing drop sets 12 with your heaviest weight, straight down to 8 with a lighter weight then 6 with an even lighter weight, no rest inbetween.

I do this with 15 kg , 12 kg and 10 kg dumbells and the burn in the shoulders is intense, if you dont get a burn of doing this, youre doing something wrong!

[gomez26]

I have never once felt a burn of any kind in my deltoids. Its always in my traps. My traps are over developed and my side and rear delts are pittiful

lying side laterals involve minimal traps.

also might want to try side laterals while sitting back on an incline bench. they still involve traps but not as much. try & find a bench where the dbs can actually go behind your back & touch each rep at the bottom. it seems strange at first to do side laterals on an incline bench, but a guy here told me about them & they are better imo.

i would suggest 15 reps per set using very strict where u hold the peak contraction for a second at the top, when u can no longer do this due to fatigue, pump out another 10 reps explosively even using momentum. so 15 full strict reps + another 10 which end up being partials. it seems high but u should be able to do each set within 60 secs which is still in the hypertrophy range.

[Tyciol]

Wouldn't the best way to avoid relying on traps be to do these at a slower tempo? It is possible to cheat and not use the deltoids by rapidly shrugging the weight up to get past weak or sticking points (much like the same is done during a clean in olympic lifting) but you pretty much can't do it when you're doing it slowly, right?

One way to do it too is at the bottom of each rep, pretend like you are trying to push your dumbbells into the ground, like your shoulders are coming out of your sockets. This will depress your scapulae and stretch out the traps. Also, the delts help to hold your humeri in their sockets so I think it could help stretch them a bit too.

I remember in Pavel's Beyond Bodybuilding he says to focus on pushing outward as you go up, maybe helps as opposed to focusing on 'up' which is upper trappish.

Also, changing the angle of a lateral raise (though you would have to do it 1 arm at a time) might help too, like if you leaned away from your dumbbell, the trap wouldn't be pulling 'up' anymore right?

[x-ray vision]

2 words brah (PRE-EXHAUST)

Hir your traps hard and hit them first. They'll be way less likely to get involved in your shoulder exercises.

If someone were feeling it too much in his triceps when doing bench presses, would you recommend he pre-exhaust triceps first? That's what you're doing here. By taking your advice he would feel it even more in his traps on shoulder exercises.

[brianhorne3]

Upright rows with a wider grip, puts more emphasis on the delts and less on the traps. And make sure form is right.

[djansen]

lying side laterals involve minimal traps.

also might want to try side laterals while sitting back on an incline bench. they still involve traps but not as much. try & find a bench where the dbs can actually go behind your back & touch each rep at the bottom. it seems strange at first to do side laterals on an incline bench, but a guy here told me about them & they are better imo.

.

DD? and are you sitting on an inline bench like you would for curls or a press or are you facing the incline bench?
and what angle?

[_OZ_]

There is guy who used to post on this forum, DiamondDelts. If you search for his threads he's written a lot of interesting info on delt training.

[newbreedfreak]

Side raises, wide upright rows, cable side raises, and my new favorite, partial side raises. Pump is good with the partials.

[EPMD]

I remember in Pavel's Beyond Bodybuilding he says to focus on pushing outward as you go up, maybe helps as opposed to focusing on 'up' which is upper trappish.

Excellent! Thanks for that.

[al-faz]

lying lateral raises are good IMO

Negged!

Lat raises are a waste of time!!

It's all about shoulder presses!

[SwagMorris]

You don't need "advanced" lifts whatever they might be.Feeling it in your traps says your doing it wrong.
Learn proper form on lateral raises.

And..... this

But, I like face pulls (of the cable and band variety) to work my anterior and medial delts. Yes they also work traps. Yes get over it.

[watertoy]

Cable side flyes are superior.

[gomez26]

DD? and are you sitting on an inline bench like you would for curls or a press or are you facing the incline bench?
and what angle?

sitting like in curls or presses, not facing bench. using maybe 60 deg. like i said with the right bench u can make the dumbells touch behind your body.
someone else put me onto them, not dd but i havent read his stuff in ages, maybe he does them as well.

[rivet0r]

You don't need "advanced" lifts whatever they might be.Feeling it in your traps says your doing it wrong.
Learn proper form on lateral raises.

I agree and disagree. Yes horrible form will use more traps, but sometimes even perfect form will do the same, especially when your traps completely overpower your shoulders. You really need to think about the muscle you are trying to hit, and think about using it to lift the weight up.

And..... this

But, I like face pulls (of the cable and band variety) to work my anterior and medial delts. Yes they also work traps. Yes get over it.

I think you meant posterior and medial.

[IceHandz906]

Simply take a bar, and do a set of behind the neck presses, then a set of uprights, and then a set of front lateral raises, all with the same bar although you'll have to remove weights to do the front lateral raises, and then repeat it all for another full set. This three-way superset technique always works for me.