 Hey guys, I'm Rob Riches and on today's video for supplement world.com We'll be taking a look at the shoulder muscle in particularly the three deltoid heads Before we get started on the insertions the origins and the different structural components of the shoulder I'd like to first talk about joint health when we talk about the shoulder joint We're actually talking about the ball and socket joint similar to that of the hip Except with the hip that ball sits much deeper into the pelvis with the shoulder It doesn't quite therefore. It's susceptible to a lot of Injuries not so much with the weight that you're lifting with the shoulders But more so the improper technique and form and so by keeping the shoulders in their proper anatomical position Which is a slightly shrug position and pulled back so that you're not rounding them forwards You can perform many if not all of the exercises with more comfort because what happens are these deltoid heads Starts to cross over they cause friction leads to inflammation therefore possible injury So always remember when you perform these exercises keep the shoulders shrugged and the shoulders pulled back Okay, speaking of exercises. Let's first look at the three different deltoid heads Now we can see that it's almost like a triangular position And that's where the shoulders get their name delts or deltoids from from the Greek letter delta It's a triangle when it comes to training the deltoids There's two main types of movements. You have a press movement and a raise As you can probably see a press movement involving raising the arms up and extending them above the head We'll involve all three heads of the deltoid head So this is a great exercise to get early on in the workout when you're at your freshest You've got the most energy and especially with the involvement of the triceps here You can lift more weight so an overhead press whether it's a barbell press on a Smith machine And also don't forget about performing the overhead press slightly behind the back of the head This will involve more of that posterior deltoid This is an exercise that will allow you to develop strength and power which especially is important for those of you starting out Don't forget about the clean and press as well Many of us perform the overhead press as a standing or a seated barbell press But by using a clean motion into a press It can allow you to establish much more power and strength early on in your training Arm position as well is also important when it comes to pressing You can have the elbow slightly forwards which will bring in more of the anterior deltoid All by keeping the elbow spread as you extend that weight up which will involve more of that medial deltoid So with the compound movements such as the clean and press or seated overhead press done early on in the workout Which involves all three heads of the deltoid as well as traps, rhomboids and triceps to a degree You're then free to move on and start to isolate each one of these deltoid heads Different movements angles and exercises will allow you to focus more so in particular heads of these deltoids Now why is that important? Well when we talk about overall development We're talking about balance and symmetry as well And as I've already mentioned a lot of the anterior and that medial deltoid gets worked a lot with many chest exercises, pressing and also arm exercises to a degree So it's this the posterior deltoid that kind of gets left behind So if you're a competitive bodybuilder an athlete or just someone really wanting a great physique well balanced proportional You really do need to focus on all three heads and with those first two heads already being well worked with many other Exercises your attention then comes to that back deltoid So once you've established those overhead presses whether it's through a cleaning press Dumbbells or a seated or standing barbell you can then move on and focus on your raises One of the most common ways to train this is with a bent over dumbbell fly Now for this one It's a little bit tricky and there are cable variations and a bench But for this you'll see you need to slightly bend hips are pushed back Your torso is almost parallel to the floor and the arms are kept straight But with a slight bend in the elbow as you raise the elbows up keeping the arms from flexing Your focus is to contract and squeeze the shoulder blades together now This involves the rhomboids a little bit as well Just like when you wake up in the morning and you stretch it's that same kind of movement of bringing the arms back and really engaging The rear deltoids contracting them at the top if you find that this position of a standing bent over Dumbbell rear del fly is perhaps a little bit tricky then try doing it on a bench pronated Facing that bench whether you're standing up on the bench or actually sitting leaning forwards This simplifies the exercise because you're not having to maintain your position as you perform the exercise Keep the weight light and I'd recommend doing volumes of 10 12 even 15 to 20 repetitions The deltoids are relatively small muscle groups So you don't want to be doing too much weight and the only reason you can manage a lot of weight with those Overhead presses is because you're working all three of them in conjunction with your traps and triceps in that pressing movement Cables also lend themselves to be a great technique to work any particular head of these deltoids in particular the rear deltoid in a bent over position now cables provide that constant tension throughout the full range of motion and Allow you to work it through many different angles If we look at the actual structure of the three deltoids the muscle is a multi-penner Which means they're all sort of cross-sectional fibers Any time you do a lateral raise you're actually working all three of them And there's about seven different attachments that we see we see three main ones here But they're made up of sort of two two and three Which means it's important to work them through a variety of different angles The use of cables really allow you to focus on those different angles now when it comes to variation There's a number of different variations that you can use when training that lateral the medial deltoid head in Particularly bringing the dumbbells down to the front of the body to the side and behind when performing a standing lateral raise What this will do is it will stress all three heads in a slightly different angle each time You bring it down to the front bring in more of the anterior at the side more so that medial deltoid When you bring the weights behind your body, which you can also do with cables You're involving more of that posterior deltoid head so angles and Rangers very important when it comes to training your deltoids especially with the lateral raises So now we move on to the anterior the front deltoid and just because this gets worked a lot with many of the shoulder Chest and arm exercises often people don't train the anterior deltoid But I think you should and here's why we're talking about overall shoulder Development and for that we need symmetry and balance and just because you're involving the anterior deltoid in many other Exercises doesn't mean that you're necessarily developing it as you would with specific exercises So for the front deltoid this can be performed either seating or standing with your dumbbell raises And you can form this one arm at a time either with a rotation or by just keeping the palms facing each other Kind of like a hammer curl for the biceps Another variation with this is a straight bar or with a rope Cable raise tons of different variations angles that will all stress different points on the anterior deltoid and Speaking of the three deltoids a great technique is to employ either triceps or a Supersets performing a press type movement and then either combining that with an upright row or a lateral raise This allows you to train shoulders in a relatively short time keeping a lot of stress and Intensity on the muscles without necessarily using too much weight Just remember about your former technique keeping the shoulders slightly back and in a shrug position So that they're anatomically correct when you're performing many of those exercises Now if you're just starting out with fitness I'd recommend giving yourself a good six months to really develop great overall strength and mass in your shoulders by first focusing on just a Few exercises a clean and press or a seated shoulder press both to the front And also slightly behind to involve more of the anterior deltoid and then finishing with some lateral raises You really don't need to be doing too much Once you've established a good foundation for shoulder training then you can start to isolate some of these deltoid Anterior the lateral and the posterior deltoid each with their own type of raise and don't be afraid to mix it up with use of dumbbells Isolation so one arm at a time and cables as well as also a number of different techniques strip sets Which can involve an overhead press Stripping the weight down after you reach your point of failure three or four times And then finishing with a superset of a lateral or particularly the rear delt lateral raises When it comes to training shoulders I like to really warm up first with a number of Exercises performing light weights high repetitions a number of light stretches and then moving into my compound presses early on in the Workout when I feel I have the most strength and energy Then simply focus on the rear delt the medial and the front deltoid and maybe finish with some calves or forearms at the end To shoulders aren't a big muscle group. Therefore. You don't need to train them with that much weight If you're supersetting combining exercises You can hit all of the shoulder muscles in about 15 or 20 minutes leaving extra time to hit your calves Forearms or even an arm workout biceps and triceps For more information on shoulder training including a full article on each of the muscle heads and all of the exercises You'll find this over at supplements world comm If you haven't already do subscribe to our YouTube channel stay up today on more training and nutritional videos. I'm Rob Richards. Thanks for watching. We'll see you soon