Rear Delts - Why they are so important, our Top 3 exercises to train them

The Rear Delts are one of the most important muscles in the upper body. However most people neglect them, train them incorrectly and don’t give them the attention they deserve. We take a look at just why they are so important, and why they should be a focus of most of your training sessions.

Anatomy

The Posterior Deltoids (Rear Delts) are the muscle fibres on the rear side of your shoulders. The muscle originates in the Scapula (Shoulder Blade) and inserts into the Humerus (Upper Arm) along with the Lateral (Side) and Anterior (Front) Delt muscles. The Rear Delts function alongside the Scapula Retractors, Rhomboids and Traps to pull your shoulders back. This is important as it reduces the shoulders hunching forward. Excessive upper body hunch leads to excessive shoulder and back stress and increases the risk of injury.

Why most people have a weak posterior chain

The ‘desk job’ posture, is where most people spend most of the day hunched over their computer with poor posture. A rounded back and hunched shoulders is a recipe for long-term hunching and injury.

Combined with this everybody loves Chest Day. Overtraining the frontal plane, by doing too many chest days, leads to excessive hunching. By increasing the size of the anterior muscles, relative to the posterior, the upper body becomes hunched over. The back muscles become relatively weaker than the front muscles, and are unable to pull the shoulders back.

What you can do to solve the problem

Work more back and less chest.

Train the Rear Delts regularly, with the following exercises.

Rear Delt Flys

Grab our Dynamic Band in front of you, keep your arms straight and pull your arms to make a T-Shape. Making sure to squeeze your shoulders back and open up the chest. Pro Tip: Add in another Dynamic Band when one becomes too light.

Inverted Row

Grab our Rings, or Power Straps, with your feet on the floor and shoulders squeezed back, row your body up to your hands and hold. The higher your hands are up your body, the more you are working your upper back. Make sure to keep your shoulders squeeze back throughout the movement.

Scapula Retract / Fly Combo

Using our Power Strap/Dynamic Band combo, grab a strap in one hand and a band in the other. Retract the scapula of the strap hand throughout this exercise, and perform a single arm rear delt fly with the other. This combo exercise helps to isometrically work one delt, and dynamically work the other. Perform on one arm, then switch hands and carry on.