The Best Muscle Building Exercises for Side Delts

alright guys so the series continues of in my opinion the best muscle building exercises for various body parts I think we're on number 4 something numbers don't matter and this one is for side delts so I was thinking about doing it just for delts but then it's like that you know in the bodybuilding world you know again if you're you know mrs. Jones just trying to get some metabolic output you know or even maybe make the argument of you're an athlete or something like that we're thinking more big motions push type things you know you might not need to specialize rear delt side delt fronto but in the physique development world again all of this is towards you know having the best possible physique the most possible muscle you can have obviously everyone within the bodybuilding community will agree that you know it's worth having individual exercises something for rear delts for side delts for front delts so I figured this was the best way to go about it he's giving my favorite for each so if you guys haven't watched already I always recommend going back and watching one of the very first video videos I post that goes a little bit more in-depth into what makes a great exercise and as you guys know I'm really really really big on principles you know if you understand the principles of how to build an exercise then you're less likely to be confused is like oh well people have always said this is the best or people of allah or this seems to make sense or this doesn't seem to make sense if you have principles you literally have those always exist and then when you're come across an exercise you can just you know sift them through those principles and through that sifting process hopefully you can figure out to an extent for yourself does this or does this not make sense and again it's nothing's black and white you know so again if you know you watch this and I give you ok here's my top 1/2 and then here's maybe my third or fourth were these more traditional exercises sometimes fit in you know it doesn't make those bad you'll just see well maybe these mark of my three big parameters you know these check all three in those boxes you know and these one maybe only check two that doesn't mean it can't grow muscle it just means well I'd rather do this one over that one if I have that option sometimes you don't it's not a big deal it's not the end of the world so anyway again just the quickest overview my big three principles for building exercises for hypertrophy is alignment so again how well does it target the muscle you know so lines of force aligning with the fibers that we're trying to target and how well that is aligned with the joints involved meaning if there's some idea of force should go through a joint in a certain way that's not going to hurt that joint at least more than it should or put stress on that joint more than it should or is necessary to get into the attention to that muscle you know does it adhere joints as well to the next I'll say is bracing so again I use the example of late presses one of the most simple to understand where if you have something to push into an opposition some of this can cross over a little bit into stability so the less stuff you have to manage as well - it can be kind of a component of bracing but again it would be the example of a lake press without the back pad how much could you lake press if there was literally no back pad it would dress it would drop off maybe a tenth of what you could actually lake press otherwise because you have something unmoving to push into you don't have to stabilize your torso you don't disable eyes your hips you can push in there if it on moves it's going to give you so much more force or output production and that's the same for every single exercise and last is profiles and again profile is you know the idea of what range of motion are you training and does the load match what your body is capable of doing in that range of motion since we're doing laterals this is a great example where again if I have my arm on my side starting with a lateral raise if you're doing a dumbbell using a dumbbell because that dumbbell essentially aligned the line of force the line of pool of that dumbbell straight up and down with gravity is lined up straight through the shoulder joint that means that moment arm which again is the distance from the access of that line of force is near zero so it's moment arm times the load which equates to torque torque is what R goes through the joints the muscles have to manage so the torques at zero I'm essentially going to say how much the muscle is working the muscle has nothing here and is really really hard here so again that's not if I had to put on like what your side delts are capable of doing let's just talk about this range of motion you know there's 90 degrees from the side to here if anything they might get slightly weaker to the top I don't think it's super super drastic because I don't think this is quite a fully shortened or fully contracted side delt I'm so again this 90 degrees of range of motion the load if anything should go from heaviest at the bottom somewhere around heaviest to later at the top some amount of lighter I don't think the exact amount matters a whole lot that's gonna vary from person to person so again the dumbbell does the exact opposite of that so that's one of my biggest knocks on traditional delt exercises or delt raises is the profile the profile is one of the biggest problems with traditional ones meaning it's generally the opposite of what it should be so when picking my top two exercises which if you guys have skipped ahead you've already seen if you're watching this you haven't skipped ahead obviously that's if I'm breaking down the biggest things the number one missing thing for most traditional delt exercises and again if you watch through this video sometimes I'll have more traditional movements you know whether it's a press or whatever because they make sense they fit the perimeter sometimes exercises that have been done for a million years are great sometimes there's just glaring things to me that make no sense I don't see how anyone can argue having a profile for that bad for a dumbbell Lowery's is beneficial so using a cable setting up a cable which you guys will hear me explain a little bit more in the next little segment allows for a better profile if you look at the other two the thing that you can't take away from dumbbell raises done properly is alignment is easily adjusted so it's easy to make sure that your shoulder joint lines up you know your elbow is an overly bed turning it into an internal external rotation exercise now it's easy to make sure it lines up with the joint lines up with the fibers of the front delt by adjusting your torso position you know your degrees of internal external rotation of the shoulder joint so dumbbells can be aligned perfectly you know that's not anything that the cables have over them but then bracing is another thing so I'm not putting it on the list at all but if you just wanted to change traditional dumbbell lateral raises to make them a better exercise I would say just do them on a bench with your chest so if I have an incline bench that's let's say incline to 80 degrees don't get married to that angle and put your chest into that what you're kneeling on the bench or just standing on the bench then you've you've fixed a bracing so again you that that point time you have that to push into that to use as a reference or gauge the ground is unmoving so as you raise up as long as all the joints in between meaning the the shuh why people should do them on a bench as opposed to standing if you watch people really get after dumbbell lateral raises it turns into a total body exercise I mean you can literally see people balancing and think I do it too even subconsciously that's why I like to do them lying down just takes out stuff that I can mess up even if I'm not trying to mess it up but you'll see people literally making a little bit of a calf raise their knees bend their hips bend their torso moves back and forth you can't argue anything moving other than just the shoulder joint is something else moving that dumbbell so again if you want it to make traditional dumbbell lateral raises a better exercise then just do them seated again with your chest into a bench whether you're kneeling or standing on it and then you've got two out of the three really good you've got good alignment you've got good bracing and the only thing really missing from it then is profiles if you wanted to fix this on your own so someone's gonna say you see the next two exercises are cables for what if you don't have cables the two options that make the most sense one I'll give you the best option is get a spotter a training training partner so meaning if you have a dumbbell it's a more appropriate load from the bottom the advanced advanced technique is someone can apply a little bit of pressure from the bottom so again if you have a you know a 15 pound dumbbell that's actually challenging here but it skate down here someone can apply additional force so they're changing the direction of the line of force they can press in on your arms from the bottom and let off as you come to the top press in is when you're at the bottom and let off when you're at the top and you're using additional force to make the profile better or the other way around of that if you use a heavier dumbbell so let's say the same person the same level of strength you know they can grab a thirty pound dumbbell so it's a little bit more appropriate load down here but they can't get it up then your spotter would help you that last a little bit so that's a way to adjust essentially changing the direction the force is applied when force is applied is changing the exercises resistance profile so that's the ways that you could modify you know again for knocking two out of three everybody can do it with a bench and a dumbbell and still make it a pretty decent exercise if you want to go all three out of three without a cable you need a spotter the next option which I hate and I don't do just for convenience is lying on a side so literally if you on an incline bench let's say 45 degrees is a pretty good angle you're lying on your side and doing lateral raises this improves the profile so there's now tension from the bottom here's where it's going to be heaviest and as you come up the finish it's gonna drop off a little bit it's not it's not that it's the bench is still stable so it keeps things shook but kind of Smashing yourself from the side sometimes it gets your shoulder blades in a weird spot sometimes this becomes harder to manage but it is a better profile it is good for alignment it is decent bracing so those would be like my number you know of my top two which I'm gonna get to finally in a minute those would be where I put those on the list as you could add them somewhere as four five six you know decent exercises still as well - the main reason I don't like this one is because it takes twice as long you guys have known for certain body parts especially where I think pacing is important I hate going single arm when I have the option of going both arms at the same time just because it's more efficient so for the reasons that you'll see the next two are my favorite so again the one that you'll hear me explain obviously in good detail in my video is 100% might go to for the reasons of alignment for the reasons of profile and for the reasons of bracing I think it's unbeatable again you'll see there's even cuffs on the wrists that's only I don't talk about in the video it just takes your hands out of if you don't have cuffs absolutely you can do them with handles but when you actually try comparison doing the working sets both weights if you're just taking that's where I kind of put it in the component of bracing is taking something out of your hand and going with your wrist especially for shoulder raises I would argue takes another like a weak link of the chain out so you don't have to worry about your grip fatigue you just focus on fatiguing your side delts so I don't want to say that I invented these two exercises especially the first one because it seems like someone should have done this but all I'll say is I never seen anyone do this before and I'd never done it before myself before kind of just thinking about the parameters of how could you make a lateral raise better and it just seemed like man this is so simple so you'll see this one I do on any dual cable machine will be fine like a functional trainer you know free motion makes them the one I'm using might be like a I don't know Star Trek or something but Sipho everybody makes them or you could use light fitness has a they have a dual cable as well too but they have a seated station on a row where to do a dual row you could also use that station attach the cuffs to that I always tend to cross them because it's just a a bit of a better profile otherwise it's very similar to similar to what you have with a dumbbell raise so again I don't want to say I invented them I'm gonna say that I've never seen anyone do them ever before and then I started doing them and the thing that's you're always gonna have somebody say there's just emotional attachment you just think free weights have to be better because you've heard it for so long but if you're really just sitting marinate on the principles for well I it's just it's hard it's hard to argue and I mean I like dumbbells as much as everybody nice they'll use them and then the last thing they'll say is you still have people that kind of watch this I don't want to do it it looks different it's a way I'm gonna think I'm reinventing the wheel whatever the thing I can say is I've never taken someone through this and not have them kind of have their eyes open being like oh my gosh like I've never once you feel it you know so you can see he did a post on it recently people were asking back to find it one of my good friends Jordan Peters who's an amazing body builder he's freaking massive his delts are the size of most human heads you know this is a movement that I got him doing I don't know maybe a year ago or something or less than that and he literally says we'll never do it dumbbell lateral raise ever again I've had hardly brought loves ease I've had Dana Lin do these and Rob do these and I mean everybody everybody I've ever had do these they're like oh yeah you know so there's always that thing of like you know people are gonna look at you like you're reinventing the wheel or doing something different or it takes a teeny bit longer to set up then just grab a pair of dumbbells I get it but the thing you really have to do before you knock this is do them right do them hard there's nowhere in this video I talked about doing these lights there's nothing about a cable that means you should do them light once you get good at these you can load the out of them I mean if you really think about how much weight you should doing on these I mean have some stronger guys you know doing upwards of 40 pound plus with cables which is basically like the equivalent obviously it's 40 pounds is 40 pounds 40 actual pulling pounds of force and the difference is where a 40 pound dumbbell is only hard right here this is 40 pounds that is literally never crossing through the shoulder joint so applying constant force through that shoulder joint the entire time now so again that's the kind of a nail in the coffin as people Ted the people that would knock this exercise or say they're just going to stick with what's always worked and all that stuff I guarantee they've never done it and I guarantee they've never done it right or they've never done it hard once you take someone do this and I blast somebody it's again you're gonna be converted if there's something to be converted to and then the second one that's on here again I don't I won't talking too in-depth about but it's a really cool exercise as well to again I put this one up in 2016 at some point time if you went way back on my Instagram with a creep do all the way back there and this is a great one too I don't use this as much because I use the first one so much because it's so damn good why would I use this one so even on this one my number one is my number one by a long shot this one you lose a little bit of bracing you know could you turn the bench around and could you press into it a little bit but then sometimes you a little bit of an issue with the cables running into stuff and above all whatever and with the amount of load putting your feet onto that platform is not hard to keep yourself pressed back in there and lock in that way and you still have the bench as a gauge obviously to make sure your shoulder blades are staying nice and still the one very cool advantage of this machine or this exercise is it takes it all the way back here and I think that's a fully shortened side delt and again I'm not gonna say I mean I'm pretty safe the same but I've never seen him be do this exercise for again exactly this way and again for adults and most people I've never really seen trained there side delts here so again I hadn't seen this when I did that and again the unique unique thing about this one is it loads the side delt in a fully shortened position which you'll see me talk about on the previous exercise I like more for activation and that's why you so really to kind of wake up that side delt I don't generally have to load it there the reason I put this exercise is number two is because the the load is still appropriate and very heavy through these lengthened and mid ranges and it drops off significantly as you come back here so from all those things alignment is great the profile is awesome and bracing is still pretty darn good so it's a great great exercise and I still do it sometimes but it's one of those things once you've done the first exercise you know you train the delt through 90% of its contractile range and where I'd argue it's capable of growing the most you're just going to feel like well where would I place this exercise after that point but you'll see I even offer like a nice little superset where can I still think it's kind of missing that fully or is as fully lengthen of adult as you know kind of going through your body now so if you do this as superset right as I show in the next video you know you can see where you can overload that length and position as well - we didn't quite finish it so these would be my top one is number one by a long shot you know number two you know is very very close just kind of a little off for bracing and not quite as stable and really just some of its semantics of spotting someone how hard I can make some work on it everything else is so locked in on the other one it's by far it's awesome so again number one by a long shot number two is still a great exercise absolutely worth putting in your rotation but I'm kind of the guy if I can have one exercise that gets the job done for side delts that's it so to answer any questions yes lots of the time this is the only exercise I do for side delts because it's such a good exercise anything else would either be inferior or redundant of a range I've already adequately loaded in my opinion and and again the semantics of how much whatever I generally do anywhere from two to three working sets of this exercise and I'd like to add in drop down sets and all that kind of stuff job down sets and drop sets and whatever anything to make this fill in a lot of density a lot of reps in a short period of time to make it horrible so hopefully all that makes sense you know get lots and lots of questions about this exercise so hopefully the next video will really help clarified even further I incorporated one working set my good friend I'm an occasional training partner Brice bomb taking me through it exactly how I like to do a working set as you'll see I've got a decent amount of weight on those stacks and I'm not even a very strong human being but again just since you know if you're if you're learning it and you're doing five pounds to learn it great but the whole point of every single exercise is once you've learned it once you feel it once you have control once you've got a good ironed inform is loaded with absolutely as much weight as that muscle can tolerate for a given rep range and then train your spotter again if you watch Bryce about me on this one it's pretty apparent there's no way in hell I would have got a I couldn't get as much out of a set without a spot like he provided and so watch how he's spotting watch how he's applying force watch always helping me keep the reps consistent and not go to and that's just a great way to take it all the way so included one working set as well with the idea of again me not being a very bigger strong person the kind of weight that you can actually use on this ultimately if you get good at it and lock it in stone and then that second one is - second places and then hopefully obviously watch through if you want to know where dumbbell raises and all that fit in again I grew my delts decently if you really look when I started incorporating this exercise two years ago I honestly wouldn't tribute my delts were probably my best body parts to come up from 2016 to 2018 to the present and I honestly attribute this exercise to the biggest portion of their growth is from in that time from 2016 through now is when I stopped doing traditional dumbbell lateral raises I do these entirely and I've had the same thing happen again I you know results are all that matters look at Jordan Peters look at what he said happened to his delts over the course of the last six months or so not doing a single not doing one dumbbell lateral raise ever and replacing entirely with this exercise and if you haven't go look him up with his Instagram I'm not kidding his delts are the size of a small human child because someone's gonna say yes I've used this exercise with everyone this works any any exercises that fits this parameter for natural athletes arguably works better than for enhanced athletes because you just need to have you don't have as much margin for error so again I've used the crap out of this exercise the people I trade delts are the most of course guys and bodybuilders but delts I would argue are the second if not the most important body part for female competitors especially figure competitors so this is a favorite of mine for like if you see some of the girls that before I kind of stopped working with competitors I'm over the past couple years Nikki's one of them but there's quite a few if you look at some of their delt transformations it would literally be like their delt workouts would start here I'd run them into the ground there for 15 minutes and then we do some other stuff after that but again yeah so it works amazing for everyone should go without saying but I'm gonna say it anyway amazing for natural athletes as well - if anything arguably better because their margin for error is less so as always hope this helps if you're looking for more stuff like this more tips again I've got at least 10 15 different delt workouts incorporating this exercise fully written up with videos like this audio like this that's what this next clip comes from is from my site so if you haven't checked out aperture if you like this stuff and if you're into it you know be sure to check out that site but I will be continuing this series again ultimately I will get through every single body part including every head of the Delta and then every other muscle in the body so thank you guys as always for watching I'm gonna still keep trying to pump these out consistently if anyone's remotely concerned for my personal life which I wouldn't be if I were you I've just been a little inconsistent because my wife is 39 weeks pregnant so we've lived in like doctors appointments seems like every other day and just kind of on baby you watch right now just the whole thing revolves around obviously caring for our two current children and trying to get ready for this one so anyway keeping as consistent as I can until that baby's out in our world and in our routine and then it back a little bit of a group so again I hope yourself guys appreciate you so moving on to lateral cuff raises hopefully you guys we've seen we do this exercise a billion times explaining it a thousand times but just the quickest recap that the biggest advantage in my opinion is the profile so meaning if you look where the cables cross unless that cable is lined up straight in line with my shoulder joint there's still tension so unlike a dumbbell Lowery's there's a ton of tension here where you're still fairly strong and you should come to the top it actually drops off that cable gets a little closer to the shoulder joint so it gets a little lighter so again people always talk about full range of motion training full range of motion is important but only as important as the load for that range of motion is appropriate so meaning when I'm doing a dumbbell lateral raise there's no challenge here I can just sit here and swing this thing all day long and it's only really hard here so doing something like a cable I can train to that same full range of motion but instead of only make it maybe thirty degrees of the range of motion for a dumbbell being beneficial here the entire 90 ish degrees range of motion is beneficial and then aside from that looking for cues my quickest and easiest things I like the warm-up here is doing them seated upright you'll see I come to this position here I come to this position because when you actually rotate the shoulder joint and you come into this abducted position it basically creates more room in the shoulder joint so this is probably a fully shortened side delt as opposed to here where you're going to run out of rain to the g8 joint so instead of running out here open up get to that fully short position I don't find it the most valuable position to load heavily but I incorporated almost all the time just to get those fibers in that position and it really helps me warm up and then you'll see when I line to the motion the nice part is just find your comfy spot so I have a lot of people where I'll see them one don't bend your elbows a lot I'll see people have to come up with the raise they're bending their elbows more aside for basically making it less torque or less load at your shoulder joint you're in court you're starting to add in the component of internal external rotation where your external rotators have to work more than they should to find a fixed position at the elbows and the best cue I can give us think out so when I'm lying on my on my back I'm trying to push my hands towards the walls as far as I can as opposed to thinking up towards my head and then from there find your company slot so you kind of see where I am this isn't exact but somewhere from here to here it's where you're gonna want to be in the top position you don't want to be coming way up here where it's starting to turn a little bit more into a front raise so I still say straight out to the side but if there's a difference of comfort from here to here again when I'm lying on my side just kind of find where scoffs well folks function trapped in that side delt as hard as you can in that position [Music] now you're sure all that negative Jill I'll let it out God my work in that negative finish Adam we got more let's go yep yep yep yep under up come on come on a tiger let's go work do that consent you finish it topper you're strong very good oh thank you alright guys so apologize for the the screen here but this one's going back to 2016 and the vault to show you this one so again just a couple Q's here thinking wide and out so reaching my hands towards the outside walls pushing them as far as I can not thinking back shoulder blades relatively still not letting them move up and down a little bit back in Fortis in the end of the world I'm driving my feet in that bench so you're not seeing if my shoulders my upper back comes on and off that bench at all it's going to be coming from my torso moving and not from my side delts so again this one is gonna get that dealt and that fully short and fully contracted position you'll see as I come through the motion that cable gets closer to my shoulder joint so there's still room to play here as far as the bench for the bench backwards whatever but then I would argue that exercise it doesn't overload a more length and position of the side delt so here is what you do you extend the set you walk forward and just take whatever you've got left in that position now I'm in again showing cuffs on here because you can just take them hand out of the equation I think is always a good option so as always hope these help guys

Channel: Hypertrophy Coach

Views: 55,956

Rating: 4.9035535 out of 5

Keywords: delts, delt workout, shoulder workout, side delts, side delt exercises, how to build big shoulders, best exercises for side delts

Id: XGqH9EAMmUc

Length: 26min 26sec (1586 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 04 2018