Rear Delt Fly: How To Get Well-Defined Shoulder Muscles?

When working out, you have plenty of exercises to choose from that target specific muscle groups. There are workouts for your back, biceps, and shoulders, and it is essential to balance these workouts and diversify your choice of exercises.

A balanced workout plan will ensure proper muscle growth and development over time. A critical exercise for your back and shoulders is the rear delt fly.

The rear delt fly exercise, also known as the rear delt raise, is an important exercise to add to your workout plan. This compound workout strengthens your shoulder and back as well.

However, there are many details that you need to be careful of when performing the rear delt fly. These can include proper form, equipment, and technique.

But you do not have to worry when performing this exercise since we will cover everything you need to be careful of. Let us discuss all this and answer all the questions you might have regarding the rear delt fly. The purpose of this guide is to help you understand everything you need to know when performing this exercise, along with some benefits that come with performing this particular exercise.

Importance of the Rear Delt Fly

As we discussed earlier, the primary focus for the rear delt fly is strengthening your back and shoulders. More specifically, it focuses on your upper back and shoulder muscles. It mainly focuses on the backside of your shoulder and puts the most pressure on that region due to the nature of the exercise.

But why is this exercise considered to be so important? One important reason why this exercise is included in every gym instructor's preliminary plan is that it can prepare you for much more complex activities.

The rear delt fly helps strengthen and tone your back, stabilizing your spine, abdominals, and hip muscles.

This helps in the long run because it assists you in preparing for compound exercises such as the deadlift and bench press. If you do not adequately prepare before performing these exercises, you could take on the wrong form, damaging your lower back and significantly reducing your range of motion.

Supplies Needed

The rear delt fly is a staple of shoulder and back exercises, but you will need specific equipment to perform this exercise. But even if you don't have the equipment mentioned here, we also said some alternative equipment you may be able to use.

Dumbbells

We mentioned dumbbells first because they're the easiest to get compared to the other alternatives on the list. Dumbbells are free weights used in most workouts and exercises, making them essential for every gymnasium you set up.

In addition to easy availability, there are benefits to performing exercises like the rear delt fly with dumbbells compared to doing them with kettlebells or on a machine.

One notable advantage is weight loss. When exercising with dumbbells, you build lean muscle mass and burn fat, leading to weight loss. Although cardio is considered the most effective way to burn fat, strength training can even help you lose weight.

Another advantage to exercising using dumbbells is that it improves blood circulation. When exercising with dumbbells, you are essentially pressuring your muscles, resulting in more robust blood flow, which enhances blood, oxygen, and nutrient circulation throughout your body.

In this case, performing rear delt fly with dumbbells also has benefits that make it a more favorable option. When you are performing this exercise, you are actively engaging your lower traps as well.

Kettlebells

Although dumbbells are a staple for every gym or home setup, they aren't the only types of weights you want to use for your exercises. In such a case, you can perform the rear delt fly using kettlebells, and exercising with kettlebells has its benefits, especially when using them to perform a rear delt fly.

One notable benefit of exercising with kettlebells is that they strengthen your core. When exercising with kettlebells, you essentially engage your heart from all directions. Therefore, kettlebell exercises improve your body, resulting in well-rounded core strength.

Additionally, kettlebells are a great exercise tool to work on your deltoids. Since one of the primary muscles and joints affected by performing the rear delt fly is your rear deltoids, kettlebells are perfect for exercising that muscle group.

Additionally, kettlebells are a perfect piece of equipment when performing shoulder exercises because they assist in fixing any muscle imbalances.

Rear Delt Fly Machine

Although not common in most gym setups, you can use a found machine in your local gym. As the name suggests, the rear delt fly machine is specifically designed to strengthen your back and shoulder muscles. This machine also helps you maintain correct form when performing the rear delt fly.

Other benefits come with performing this exercise with a machine. One notable advantage is that rear delt machines target your rear deltoids, which are essential for this exercise, and strengthen your traps and rhomboids.

Another benefit of performing this exercise on the delt machine is that it will help you maintain proper form even when increasing the weights. You can gradually increase your load for this exercise without risking your state if you don't jump to heavier weights.

Your range of motion is an essential factor when performing rear delt flys. The more range of motion you have while performing this workout, the more pressure will be put on your muscles, resulting in maximum effect when performing this exercise.

 When performing the rear delt fly on this machine, you will have a more excellent range of motion and flexibility. For this reason, the delt machine is considered the preferred choice for this workout.

What is the Best Way to do the Rear Delt Fly?

We discussed a few alternatives when understanding what equipment you will need to perform this exercise. Now that brings us to the question, what is the best way to achieve the Rear Delt Fly? There is no definitive answer because the "best" way to perform this exercise can generally come from personal preference.

Are you new to exercising in general? The machine flies should be the way to go since they can help you maintain proper form while increasing your weight.

However, as time goes by and you start increasing your weight, you should consider switching to free weights since they actively engage more of your body and help improve your gains.

How do You Perform the Rear Delt Fly?

Although this exercise is considered a staple in almost every gym, like every other exercise, you must master the correct form to perform this workout without risking any short or long-term injury.

You can perform this workout using free weights like dumbbells or on a machine. Although the technique when performing this exercise is not that different regardless, there are still some things you have to look out for, which we will be explaining as well.

Using Dumbbells

1. Positioning Yourself

After grabbing your dumbbells, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and slightly bend your knees. Position your shoulders so that they are directly over your hips, maintaining a neutral head and back position.

While performing this exercise, make sure to tuck your chin in. Grip the floor to ensure stable footing while performing this exercise.

2. Upper Body Positioning

Hinge your hips back while maintaining a neutral spine position, positioning your shins and upper body so they are at a 30 to a 45-degree angle. You should feel pressure on your legs at this point: work to maintain that position.

In addition, extend your arms in front of you so that your elbows should be slightly bent and your palms should face each other.

3. Starting Position

After ensuring that your shoulder blades are in a neutral position, you need to rotate your shoulders outwards to engage your lats. This rotated positioning should be maintained throughout the entire set and should be your starting position after each rep.

4. Movement

While maintaining the slight bend in your elbows rather than straightening them out, you should squeeze your shoulder blades to lift the weights in a sweeping arch motion.

To ensure the focus and pressure stay on your rear delts, keep the movement as wide as possible, preventing slipping down into your lats.

You must maintain that wide arch position for a moment or two, keeping pressure on your shoulder blades for maximum gains. Then, make sure to lower back down while slowly controlling your movement, back to the starting position.

Using Delt Machine



1. Positioning

Face the rear delt machine and take a seat on the pad, making sure to plant your feet on the ground for stable footing.

Grip the handlebar and position your palms, so they face downwards, ensuring that your elbows are slightly bent and not straightened out.

2. Action

Pull the handlebar back to put contracting pressure on your rear deltoid muscles until the position is in line with your shoulders.

After that, just as with the dumbbell variant, squeeze your real delts to ensure the pressure stays there and slowly return to your starting position while controlling your movement.

Rear Delt Fly: The Benefits

When training your shoulders, in particular, many fitness enthusiasts and gym instructors recommend this exercise for its benefits. One such use is that well-built rear deltoid muscles reduce the risk of shoulder injury when doing other activities, making it a great way to build a strong foundation.

Additionally, they help you maintain better posture as well. The rear delt fly helps build symmetry with your shoulder muscles, which prevents a forward slouching posture.

Another benefit of performing the rear delt fly is its health benefits to your body. As you perform this exercise regularly, your bone mass will increase.

This will reinforce your muscle strength, especially for your rotator cuff, reducing the chances of developing rotator cuff injuries in the future.

Wrap-up

The rear delt fly is undoubtedly a vital addition to anyone's exercise plan, and we have highlighted just a few reasons why that is the case.

As far as shoulder exercises go, very few activities primarily focus on your back muscles, and the rear delt fly is an isolation exercise perfect for strengthening your lower back.

We have explored almost everything to do with the rear delt fly, and I hope you find this list as the one-stop-shop for everything rear delt fly, and this might help your get started on your shoulder exercise regimen.

I hope that this guide provides you with everything you need. Be sure to give us a like and mention anything we missed in the comments.

FAQ

What muscles does rear delt fly work?

The rear delt fly, also known as the rear delt raise or the bent-over dumbbell reverse fly, is a weight training exercise that targets your upper back muscles and shoulder muscles, particularly the posterior deltoids, or rear deltoids, on the backside of your shoulders.

Are rear delt Flyes effective?

The rear delt fly is an effective and versatile upper back exercise that can be accomplished with dumbbells or a pec fly/delt fly machine. The rear delt fly with a fly machine specifically targets muscle groups in the upper back.

How do you do rear delt flies?

Squeeze your shoulder blades to lift the weights out in a wide arch, keeping a slight bend in your elbows rather than fully straightening your arms. Keep the movement-wide to maintain the focus on your rear delts, instead of slipping down into your lats.

Is the rear delt back or shoulder?

The posterior, or rear, delts are important to shoulder muscles used in many pulling movements, and they're important shoulder stabilizers as well.

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