Deltoid Exercise Advice - Hit All 3 Heads
The deltoid is a tri-headed muscle, comprised of the anterior, lateral, and posterior ‘heads.’ Well developed deltoids give your shoulders width, roundness and thickness.
When building the deltoids, it’s important to retain balance. Just as it would look ridiculous for you to have huge biceps and no triceps, equally, it would look silly for you to have one head of the deltoid clearly well developed, and the others severely lagging.
For this reason, you need to perform a deltoid exercise to hit each head of the muscle.
Here are the best ways to hit each of the muscles:
- Anterior (Front) Head: Military Press: Seated, or standing, with a barbell at shoulder width grip or slightly wider, lower the bar underneath the chin, and then press overhead. Lower slowly along the same path, and repeat.
- Lateral (Side) Head: Lateral raise: Standing, bending slightly forward at the hip, knees slightly bent, with two dumbbells held together in front of you, palms facing, arms slightly bent, raise the dumbbells to the side and slightly in front of you, until about head height or slightly more, retaining a slight bend in the arms, before twisting to put the rear end of the dumbbell slightly higher than the front end, almost as if you are pouring something out. Lower slowly along the same path, and repeat. (You may like to think of the end movement as somewhat resembling the crane kick ‘Daniel Son’ did in Karate Kid, except you won’t be standing on one leg, and your arms won’t be so high.)
- Posterior (Rear) Head: Dumbbell Lateral Raise: This exercise is performed almost identically to the lateral raise, only the back is bent over almost at parallel with the floor, a greater bend in the knees, and the dumbbells are brought up to the side and slightly behind your field of vision, forcing the posterior heads to work.
Ensuring you hit each of the three deltoid heads will give your shoulders a very well rounded appearance from the side, and great width from the front and rear, which is precisely what you want.
