Posted on May 22, 2014 by Jenny Cromack

Did you know that to build full round healthy shoulders you need to target all 7 heads of the deltoids. That’s right the deltoid muscle can be broken down into 7 heads. Often the most neglected of these segment are the posterior 2 heads as can be seen at the bottom of the rings in the pictures.

Now here comes the tricky part, most people accidentally over develop their anterior and medial heads without barely activating the posterior portion. If this continues you’ll end up with a shoulder injury, not only that the gross imbalance will effect several other exercises potentially causing your training to grind to a hold!

If you haven’t ever trained your posterior delts I would strongly advise that you stop all chest and anterior/ medial shoulder work immediately until you posterior deltoid heads have caught up to the rest of the shoulder. This will result in you coming back to your presses stronger and most importantly injury free!

The best exercises for targeting you posterioir delts I have found are:

 

Barbell rear Delt rows- 

• 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps on a 3010 Tempo will work well for this lift

Lying Rear Lateral Raise

• 3-5 sets of 8-10 reps works well for this lift

 

Include the lifts above once every fifth day and continue for up to 8 weeks. The change in the shape and strength of your shoulder will be amazing!