lateral shoulder raises 180 degrees

[ChadManAU]

Ok, odd question. I saw a guy at the gym the other day doing these. He would bring them up like a normal lateral raise, but he would keep going and eventually twist his arm above his head until the to weights would meet. Then he would do the same thing down with a controlled decline. The reason he said he does that is because it works all the head of the delt. Now I remember hearing Diamond Delts say he recommended doing something like these. Anyone ever actually try these? Any reason to not do these? Not sure if the twisting in the air would be good for your cuff or not.

[Bostongeorge617]

The reason he said he does that is because it works all the head of the delt.

I don't know how effective this exercise is, as I've never tried it for any length of time. But I don't think the rear delt can be hit with this movement.

[DJAuto]

While it may have slightly increased involvement of other heads, you end up loosing tension at different parts in the movement. I'm not a fan of performing lateral raises this way; others are. Ultimately, it's your choice.

[VoxExMachina]

I'm with Boston George. I don't see how that would have any significant effect on the rear delt. As for doing them, I can't say that I'd be a fan of the idea.

[sparbz]

Do the movement yourself with no weight... The pinch at the top that you may feel is mostly your trap and front/middle delt. I'm pretty sure you have to abduct your raised arm to work the rear delts.

[XXX666]

Ok, odd question. I saw a guy at the gym the other day doing these. He would bring them up like a normal lateral raise, but he would keep going and eventually twist his arm above his head until the to weights would meet. Then he would do the same thing down with a controlled decline. The reason he said he does that is because it works all the head of the delt. Now I remember hearing Diamond Delts say he recommended doing something like these. Anyone ever actually try these? Any reason to not do these? Not sure if the twisting in the air would be good for your cuff or not.

avoid this guy in the future

[Pump Freak 86]

Ok, odd question. I saw a guy at the gym the other day doing these. He would bring them up like a normal lateral raise, but he would keep going and eventually twist his arm above his head until the to weights would meet. Then he would do the same thing down with a controlled decline. The reason he said he does that is because it works all the head of the delt. Now I remember hearing Diamond Delts say he recommended doing something like these. Anyone ever actually try these? Any reason to not do these? Not sure if the twisting in the air would be good for your cuff or not.

If I recall correctly, DiamondDelts discussed doing the top half of that movement with very light weights to stimulate the front delt. Basically a fly for the delts. I used them for a little while, but I eventually moved on to other things, especially since my front delts dominate my upper body.

[Tyciol]

Ok, odd question. I saw a guy at the gym the other day doing these. He would bring them up like a normal lateral raise, but he would keep going and eventually twist his arm above his head until the to weights would meet. Then he would do the same thing down with a controlled decline. The reason he said he does that is because it works all the head of the delt. Now I remember hearing Diamond Delts say he recommended doing something like these. Anyone ever actually try these? Any reason to not do these? Not sure if the twisting in the air would be good for your cuff or not.

The basic lateral raise already works all the heads of the delt. It primarily works the middle, and the front/back assist in abduction. I think they need to work in the same amount otherwise it would go forward/back rather than up.

That said, I'm not sure if standing perfectly vertical has this balance or not, it might be we need to lean forward 10-15 degrees to find the sweet spot or something. It's hard to picture where the anterior fibers attach to the clavicle and the posterior fibers attach to the spine (of the scapulae, not your vertebrae, lol).

What I know doing 180 instead of 90 requires is upward rotation of the scapulae. This involves muscles like the serratus anterior, upper trapezius, and possibly the mid/lower trapezius (I'm still confused about those two, I've heard conflicting things from T-nation and ExRx, pictures don't help).

The deltoids are obviously still working as you go up, even if it's mostly an isometric role. One thing you get out of this is each rep will tend to have more time under tension (average guy's fastest 180 is slower than average guy's prompt 90).

As for whether or not it changes the angle the delts work at and might emphasize one head over the other? I don't know, angles really get confusing when the scapulae rotate.

I think if you start internally rotated (as we tend to do so the front delt doesn't take over the lateral raise), I think you end up externally rotated after 180 degrees of abduction, so while that might make the front fibers the primary abductor at that point (though I think in turn the middle fibers must then take over the role as primary flexor right...) it means you externally rotated throughout the move so the posterior deltoid could have played a part in that along with the infraspinatus/teres minor lateral rotor cuff pair.

[ironwill2008]

If I recall correctly, DiamondDelts discussed doing the top half of that movement with very light weights to stimulate the front delt.

^^^^This.

As far as rear delt involvement, it's minimal; look at Face Pulls for a really effective rear delt movement.

[XXX666]

Roelly Winkler discussed a movement that the OP may be confusing with a "180 degree lateral" which Roelly called a "delt bomb"

it looks like the hand motion that one would do during a jumping jack

the motion was done using very light weight for about 20 reps

you younger guys should subscribe to Muscular Development

[XXX666]

^^^^This.

As far as rear delt involvement, it's minimal; look at Face Pulls for a really effective rear delt movement.

and the old repost of Chris Cook rear delt video on youtube, very precise well spoken instructions

[ChadManAU]

Yea I am refering to a jumping jack type movement with weights. I could see how ultimately it would work your traps toward the end which I'm already hitting enough as it goes. Yea I'm not quite sure it would actually do anything. I'm more inclined to just do them normaly with an isometric hold at the end. My rear delts seem to already be getting blasted as it is because those seem to take the longest of any of my body parts to heal. So front and I guess posterior would be the only part I'm interested in and Military press/raises should handle that fine. Thanks for the tips guys. Reps all around!

[sparbz]

Yea I am refering to a jumping jack type movement with weights. I could see how ultimately it would work your traps toward the end which I'm already hitting enough as it goes. Yea I'm not quite sure it would actually do anything. I'm more inclined to just do them normaly with an isometric hold at the end. My rear delts seem to already be getting blasted as it is because those seem to take the longest of any of my body parts to heal. So front and I guess posterior would be the only part I'm interested in and Military press/raises should handle that fine. Thanks for the tips guys. Reps all around!

Your posterior head IS your rear head. Not a problem =]

Military Presses and Standard Lateral Raises will take care of your Anterior (front) and Middle heads. If your gym has a Peck Deck machine (The Seated Flys), you might be able to do your Rear Delt exercise on that by doing almost a reverse movement on it by facing the machine (I find this is a great isolation exercise). If not, you can bend over 90 degrees and do lateral raises, that should hit the rear delts (you may need lower weight).

But to stay on topic, I wouldn't worry about this particular exercise. I don't see any real reason why this has an extreme advantage over the conventional standing lateral raise.

Best always and keep lifting, I look forward to your progress!

[XXX666]

Yea I am refering to a jumping jack type movement with weights. I could see how ultimately it would work your traps toward the end which I'm already hitting enough as it goes. Yea I'm not quite sure it would actually do anything. I'm more inclined to just do them normaly with an isometric hold at the end. My rear delts seem to already be getting blasted as it is because those seem to take the longest of any of my body parts to heal. So front and I guess posterior would be the only part I'm interested in and Military press/raises should handle that fine. Thanks for the tips guys. Reps all around!

learning how to remove your traps from shoulder movements is a little tricky but once you are able to do so your delt development will sky-rocket. this comes with using much lighter weight and moving the joint with extreme slow controlled precision.

the way i always practiced shoulder movements was at home in a mirror. this way i could focus on how to move my shoulder and watch to make sure my traps did not lift the shoulder girdle up or back. I have used my lats to pull my shoulder girdle down during shoulder presses, laterals, etc.

take your time and have patients, practice you will be successful. learn that controll.

[Tyciol]

and the old repost of Chris Cook rear delt video on youtube, very precise well spoken instructions

I've already watched that twice and I'm thinking of using one of those sites that lets you permanently download YouTube files so I can watch it every morning and save myself some bandwidth.

Something else you guys might find interesting: Kurz from Stadion does this movement. I know he's not jacked or anything, but I like his approach to physiology (has people doing adductor pulldowns to learn side splits and stuff like that) so it makes me wonder why he does.

If your gym has a Peck Deck machine (The Seated Flys), you might be able to do your Rear Delt exercise on that by doing almost a reverse movement on it by facing the machine (I find this is a great isolation exercise).

This is great for getting a pump in them for max contraction, but even the pec decks designed to be reversible, I find you don't really get a huge stretch in the muscle. This is the ones where you can change where the handles dangle at rest and put them near the stack, even then, it makes me wonder, am I stretching with the glenohumeral joint, or am I just abducting/protracting my scapulae? I can never tell so I figure we should stretch both just to be certain?

With the pec decks that aren't reversible and just designed for the chest, we can still do a posterior deltoid movement but the range of motion might only be an inch or two. Like you would set it for as big a "stretch" for the pecs as possible, but it wouldn't actually be very big for the back since it's reversed.

Like basically, assuming that arms forming a straight line is the peak of the movement (though I know some people can hyperextend in the transverse plane, you guys are cool), setting a pec deck for what would be 200 degrees of motion (100 degrees per arm, this would be like beinging your elbows behind your back doing a chest fly) would only give you 20 degrees of motion (10 per arm) when doing a reverse fly.

learning how to remove your traps from shoulder movements is a little tricky but once you are able to do so your delt development will sky-rocket. this comes with using much lighter weight and moving the joint with extreme slow controlled precision.

This would be possible I guess with the 90 degree laterals but not with the 180 degree laterals since the scapulae must move to get the arms that high. It makes me wonder how much the delts can do on their own... 90 would be really convenient but it makes me wonder if it might be slightly more or less (80-100?).

the way i always practiced shoulder movements was at home in a mirror.

Do you do this one arm at a time? It seems like it might be easier that way because then we only have to pay attention to 2 things (shoulder and elbow) as opposed to 4 (2 of each).

this way i could focus on how to move my shoulder and watch to make sure my traps did not lift the shoulder girdle up or back.

This seems like it might be tricky for the bent-over laterals. Not only would we have to crane our neck to look up at the mirror, but I find it harder to notice retraction/adduction compared to elevation of the shoulder blades.

Also, when we are upright (normal laterals) the weight of our shoulder blades can rest on our rib cage via the clavicle... we can contract muscles like the pectoralis minor and the lower traps to try and depress the scapulae and keep the elevators (serratus anterior and upper traps) out of it.

When we are bent over though, what happens to the weight of our scapulae (and arms and the weights they're holding since they attach to them). Should we be trying to contract our scapular protractors/adductors (the serratus anterior and pectoralis minor) to try and push our shoulder blades apart and forward?

I'm wondering if going to all that trouble is necessary, because if with the bent-over raises, if we pause at the top, wouldn't the arms be forced to work to keep raised? While it's true we can cheat with our traps and stuff to explode and generate momentum to help get the weight up, if we pause at the top that momentum would go away and the arms would be forced to hold it right?

I have used my lats to pull my shoulder girdle down during shoulder presses, laterals, etc.

Um, not sure if that's a good idea. The lats, like the pecs, connect to the arms, not the scapulae, so you're pulling your arms themselves down before you even begin to pull down your shoulder girdle. It seems like using these muscles would be fighting yourself. I guess that's fine sometimes to make a weight harder (like using triceps during a bicep curl) but probably not something we always want to do.

If we could somehow use the lower traps and pec minor (though this is hard, I still can't really feel them, hard to get aware of muscles we can't see like this) it would seem better since they would keep the girdle down but not impede our arm abduction movement for the lateral raises.

I have no idea why you would want to keep the shoulder girdle down during a shoulder press, if you lock out your arms overhead I'm pretty sure you MUST rotate the scapulae up, which uses a lot of the elevator muscles (upper trap, serratus).

[sparbz]

I've already watched that twice and I'm thinking of using one of those sites that lets you permanently download YouTube files so I can watch it every morning and save myself some bandwidth.

Something else you guys might find interesting: Kurz from Stadion does this movement. I know he's not jacked or anything, but I like his approach to physiology (has people doing adductor pulldowns to learn side splits and stuff like that) so it makes me wonder why he does.

This is great for getting a pump in them for max contraction, but even the pec decks designed to be reversible, I find you don't really get a huge stretch in the muscle. This is the ones where you can change where the handles dangle at rest and put them near the stack, even then, it makes me wonder, am I stretching with the glenohumeral joint, or am I just abducting/protracting my scapulae? I can never tell so I figure we should stretch both just to be certain?

With the pec decks that aren't reversible and just designed for the chest, we can still do a posterior deltoid movement but the range of motion might only be an inch or two. Like you would set it for as big a "stretch" for the pecs as possible, but it wouldn't actually be very big for the back since it's reversed.

Like basically, assuming that arms forming a straight line is the peak of the movement (though I know some people can hyperextend in the transverse plane, you guys are cool), setting a pec deck for what would be 200 degrees of motion (100 degrees per arm, this would be like beinging your elbows behind your back doing a chest fly) would only give you 20 degrees of motion (10 per arm) when doing a reverse fly.

Great post, thank you so much for this. Yes, you're absolutely right in the assumption that I was referring to the Pec Deck machines with the dangling adjustable handles. And I agree with you (though my physiology isn't near what yours appears to be) that I'm unsure of which muscles I'm exactly working when performing this exercise. But I would say I definitely feel some sort of stretch in the rear delt.

Bent over lateral raises also do the job, but I find I can only do significantly less weight with these while keeping proper form.

[nickelnickel9]

I would be worried about my cufts man. One of those exercises where the risk of injury isn't worth the possible benefit.

[Tyciol]

Are you talking about the rotor cuff? It makes me wonder, why would such a basic movement be injurious to it? Surely there must be a way to alter the form to get around it...

Something in between a front raise and lateral raise perhaps? Doing a straight-arm front raise to overhead can't be that bad since the shoulder's basically doing the same motion as an overhead press, right?

Maybe if we take a wide grip on a barbell and lift it from our hips overhead?

[nickelnickel9]

Maybe I just have weak cufts, but even when I go above parallel on lateral raises I feel a different kind of tension on it; not sure how to explain it but it's on the verge of being painful so I usually don't go above parallel.

Oddly though, I have no problem going above parallel on front raises.

[ChadManAU]

Your posterior head IS your rear head. Not a problem =]

Military Presses and Standard Lateral Raises will take care of your Anterior (front) and Middle heads. If your gym has a Peck Deck machine (The Seated Flys), you might be able to do your Rear Delt exercise on that by doing almost a reverse movement on it by facing the machine (I find this is a great isolation exercise). If not, you can bend over 90 degrees and do lateral raises, that should hit the rear delts (you may need lower weight).

But to stay on topic, I wouldn't worry about this particular exercise. I don't see any real reason why this has an extreme advantage over the conventional standing lateral raise.

Best always and keep lifting, I look forward to your progress!

Hmm so I wonder why my rear delt is always so sore. Must either be the bent over rows or the deadlifts. Only thing that I can think of that might actually still work them out. Doing an upper/lower/cardio/upper/lower setup and my delt is always sore on monday. So It would have to be something done on the last two days.

Thanks for the tip on the mirror. Going to give that a shot. My traps always get blasted and never have an issue with them lagging behind so taking the strain off them and putting it solely on the shoulder would be nice.

[sparbz]

Hmm so I wonder why my rear delt is always so sore. Must either be the bent over rows or the deadlifts. Only thing that I can think of that might actually still work them out. Doing an upper/lower/cardio/upper/lower setup and my delt is always sore on monday. So It would have to be something done on the last two days.

Thanks for the tip on the mirror. Going to give that a shot. My traps always get blasted and never have an issue with them lagging behind so taking the strain off them and putting it solely on the shoulder would be nice.

It is difficult, as seen in this thread, to find exercises that work the rear delt efficiently... It's possible (as with my experience) that the rear delt stays sorer longer because it's not worked enough, so when you finally do work it, it's not used to the strain. Overtime, this will fade out.

[ChadManAU]

http://exrx.net/Lists/ExList/ShouldW...#anchor1934542 interesting post I just saw in another thread.

[XXX666]

I've already watched that twice and I'm thinking of using one of those sites that lets you permanently download YouTube files so I can watch it every morning and save myself some bandwidth.

Something else you guys might find interesting: Kurz from Stadion does this movement. I know he's not jacked or anything, but I like his approach to physiology (has people doing adductor pulldowns to learn side splits and stuff like that) so it makes me wonder why he does.

This is great for getting a pump in them for max contraction, but even the pec decks designed to be reversible, I find you don't really get a huge stretch in the muscle. This is the ones where you can change where the handles dangle at rest and put them near the stack, even then, it makes me wonder, am I stretching with the glenohumeral joint, or am I just abducting/protracting my scapulae? I can never tell so I figure we should stretch both just to be certain?

With the pec decks that aren't reversible and just designed for the chest, we can still do a posterior deltoid movement but the range of motion might only be an inch or two. Like you would set it for as big a "stretch" for the pecs as possible, but it wouldn't actually be very big for the back since it's reversed.

Like basically, assuming that arms forming a straight line is the peak of the movement (though I know some people can hyperextend in the transverse plane, you guys are cool), setting a pec deck for what would be 200 degrees of motion (100 degrees per arm, this would be like beinging your elbows behind your back doing a chest fly) would only give you 20 degrees of motion (10 per arm) when doing a reverse fly.


This would be possible I guess with the 90 degree laterals but not with the 180 degree laterals since the scapulae must move to get the arms that high. It makes me wonder how much the delts can do on their own... 90 would be really convenient but it makes me wonder if it might be slightly more or less (80-100?).

Do you do this one arm at a time? It seems like it might be easier that way because then we only have to pay attention to 2 things (shoulder and elbow) as opposed to 4 (2 of each).

This seems like it might be tricky for the bent-over laterals. Not only would we have to crane our neck to look up at the mirror, but I find it harder to notice retraction/adduction compared to elevation of the shoulder blades.

Also, when we are upright (normal laterals) the weight of our shoulder blades can rest on our rib cage via the clavicle... we can contract muscles like the pectoralis minor and the lower traps to try and depress the scapulae and keep the elevators (serratus anterior and upper traps) out of it.

When we are bent over though, what happens to the weight of our scapulae (and arms and the weights they're holding since they attach to them). Should we be trying to contract our scapular protractors/adductors (the serratus anterior and pectoralis minor) to try and push our shoulder blades apart and forward?

I'm wondering if going to all that trouble is necessary, because if with the bent-over raises, if we pause at the top, wouldn't the arms be forced to work to keep raised? While it's true we can cheat with our traps and stuff to explode and generate momentum to help get the weight up, if we pause at the top that momentum would go away and the arms would be forced to hold it right?

Um, not sure if that's a good idea. The lats, like the pecs, connect to the arms, not the scapulae, so you're pulling your arms themselves down before you even begin to pull down your shoulder girdle. It seems like using these muscles would be fighting yourself. I guess that's fine sometimes to make a weight harder (like using triceps during a bicep curl) but probably not something we always want to do.

If we could somehow use the lower traps and pec minor (though this is hard, I still can't really feel them, hard to get aware of muscles we can't see like this) it would seem better since they would keep the girdle down but not impede our arm abduction movement for the lateral raises.

I have no idea why you would want to keep the shoulder girdle down during a shoulder press, if you lock out your arms overhead I'm pretty sure you MUST rotate the scapulae up, which uses a lot of the elevator muscles (upper trap, serratus).

for bent over laterals lay chest down on an inclined bench

[Tyciol]

for bent over laterals lay chest down on an inclined bench

I have heard of doing this. I don't have one at the moment, but it would be nice. We can also just bent at the hips if we can keep a sturdy posture.