Building a great physique takes effort, consistency, and dedication — hard, dense muscle takes time to build and even more time to refine. One of the most important body parts to build for a great, well-rounded physique, is the shoulders. Packing on mass to your delts makes for a better shoulder to waist ratio, and really is the cherry on top when looking at a muscular physique. There are many delt exercises that are decent mass builders, but today we are going to go over our favourite exercise for each part of the deltoid: the anterior (front), lateral (side), and posterior (rear).
Anterior Deltoid – Modified Dumbbell Overhead Press
Held as one of the holy grails of bodybuilding culture, the overhead press is and has been a staple movement for a very long time. Doing an overhead press for your front delts is one of the most basic, yet effective movements you can perform. Packing on size with this movement is surprisingly easy, but can be even easier when utilizing Trestalone, one of the most powerful anabolics on the market. For more activation of the target muscle during the OHP, using dumbbells is paramount when put into comparison against the barbell. Dumbbells allow for a great range of motion, more natural lifting path, better contraction and stretch, less impingement, and do a great job at preventing muscular imbalances. For this dumbbell overhead press, you’ll want to utilize a bench so you can get the most stability… but instead of putting the back at a 90° angle, we prefer to opt to a 70-80° for a safer and more effective movement. Yes, using a less intense incline will activate more upper chest fibres than a 90° incline, but in turn provides greater range of motion and more anterior delt activation as well.
Lateral Deltoid – Cable Lateral Raise
Known across the fitness community, the lateral raise is one of the best and arguably one of the only method of effectively targeting the side delt. Building the side delt is one of the most important parts to crafting an aesthetic physique and doing so can be hard if you aren’t targeting it correctly, or using the right form. Utilizing time under tension for the side delt has been proven one of the best methods for muscle development and progress. For the lateral raise, you’ll want to raise your arm to the side, leading with your elbows, with a very slight forward lean. Many people prefer to use a dumbbell because it can provide a better “feel”, but studies show that utilizing the cable machine can actually be more beneficial for muscle growth and exercise efficiency. Using the cable can be more optimal, due to the fact that tension is consistent throughout the whole movement — with dumbbells, you lose tension at the bottom of the movement because gravity is no longer against the side delt. Big, defined side delts are a must in a great physique, and Masteron can help you get shreds while still packing on size. Do this movement if you aren’t already, and your physique is guaranteed to catch eyes next time you’ve got your shirt off.
Posterior Deltoid – 45° Modified Rear Delt Cable Fly
For rear delt enthusiasts, the rear delt fly is often the go-to for targeting the muscle. However, many rear delt fly machines force the arm to contract at a 90° angle in relation to the torso which turns out to be suboptimal for growing the rear delt. When trying to contract a muscle as best as possible, it’s important to squeeze in the direction that the fibres go, and the fibres of the rear delt run at a 45° angle. With that, we now know that to properly contract the rear delt, we need to “fly” the arm at a 45° angle. So, set up your cable machine to start just above your head and squeeze your arm down to that 45° and you’ll be good to go.
After learning our 3 favourite delt exercises, make sure to incorporate these into your next workout to build sharp, defined mass onto your shoulders. As shirts-off weather is approaching us soon, it’s important to get the best muscle growth you can while bulking season is still active. For more fitness tips and anabolic steroid advice, check out some of our blogs or visit our catalogue for the best gains possible.
