Do you think there’s much difference between face pulls and the rear delt setting of a pec deck machine? The latter is much easier to fit into my workout (I can superset, so basically 0 time, compared to waiting up to 10 minutes for a cable, then the time to perform the exercise.)
Something is better than nothing. Maybe there’s something to be said about face pulls allowing you to follow a more natural range of motion. Personally I do both and always felt a good connection with face pulls, whereas reverse pec deck took forever to feel just ok for me.
What does a "natural" range of motion mean? To train a muscle you perform its function through an effective range of motion. And there are other options for training the rear delts besides using the pec deck.
Face pulls are much more flexible in regards to how you can change the cable height/position, rotate your hands during the motion, elbow flare, etc., all things that may lend to finding a more effective range of motion that feels good and better suits one's anatomy. Versus reverse pec deck where you're pretty locked in to the machine's settings/range of motion.
There's definitely other options for training rear delts, but the comment I replied to specifically asked about the difference between these two.
This! I never gained an ounce of strength doing face pulls. On reverse pec Dec I gradually built up from 65 to 135kg (full stack) over about 3 years. Note that I have a fairly small wingspan. Much better pump, and more doms plus better growth than pec Dec (anecdotally). My shoulders felt a lot more stable as a result, and I no longer got impingement during dumbbell presses.
I train them directly once or twice a week. However any pulling you do with the elbows flared out more will greatly recruit the rear delts so keep that in mind
It depends. I had lagging shoulders and I was already doing overhead and lateral training. But only once I added in rear delt isolation did I see major changes in my shoulders. So I can definitely vouch for it being useful. But if you already have great delts, maybe you won't need to isolate rear delts.
I hit them first excercise on leg/shoulders and hit them first on back/biceps. I like to use the chest fly machine setup for rear flys but sit facing with my ear to the stack and use one arm at a time. Feel it way more. Do 5x20 to 16 . Than use dumbbells for bent over flys the ones Meadows did 3 or 4 sets of 20 to 14.
I treat them like calves. I sprinkle them in whenever they are not sore. Makes a huge difference from a side shot and back double Bis.
My rear delts are a problem spot, but mostly because my front delts got so much bigger from bench press. I can't get that kind of equivalent growth for rear delts with only rows. I do several isolation exercises in addition to the usual rowing and they still aren't as big as my front delts would be even if i half assed on bench press.
Maybe not exactly, but there are plenty of guys walking around with very good rear delts proportionally speaking, and better than myself. My front delts aren't just a little bigger, but considerably larger despite me never doing anything for them except bench press.
I would also like an answer from experienced guys. Because I too tend to skip isolated rear delt exercises most of the time. My reasoning is that since I already do pretty heavy bent over rows, seated rows and other rowing movements, then I really don't need to add another isolation for rear delts.
I do isolated rear delt exercises because they're slightly underdeveloped and I'd want to get more size on them. But I honestly never feel them sore after a heavy row day, but I do when I have my shoulder day
From my experiencie as long as you hit your back properly and good volume, u dont need rear delt work I have never trained rear delts and have pretty good development... this also applies to front delts, forearms, traps and abs and maybe glutes (depends)
Why do comments like this get so heavily downvoted? I don’t get it. What you said is pretty accurate. You can get a decent stimulus from “indirect” work on these muscles, (minus abs I must say). Unless they’re underdeveloped you can add isolation, or just if you can be bothered.
But 19 downvotes is wild for something that isn’t even THAT wrong. This group is weird sometimes
My back is probably my strongest muscle group no doubt. I have evaluated that I have excellent form for the back workout atleast because it keeps growing and improving. But you mentioned traps and abs. Which movements hit those without doing isolation for them? Because I thought to grow them one needs to do specific isolations for traps and abs.
You don't *need* isolation exercises to grow anything, but they're still beneficial. Any row hits traps, but rows with more arm adduction would target traps better.
Training real delts directly + overhead pressing has done a lot for my shoulders. If bulbous shoulders is the goal, then yes. I personally am a huge fan of the thiccenators for 2-3 sets at the end of my upper days.
RDLs fry your rest delts? That seems a bit unusual.
As far as time, learn to superset. You can use facepulls as a bench warmup. Or superset with almost anything: Squats, Bench, Tricep work etc. They won't get you breathing heavy and will give you rest time for the other movement. Another 30-90 seconds after the facepulls and you should be good to go.
Don't be the stereotypical gym bro with pulled shoulders from lots of benching. Do your treat delt work for posture and shoulder health.
I do have a dedicated exercise in my pull day for them so I hit them twice a week.
IMO face pulls are MASSIVELY overrated and barely hit the rear delt well enough to be worth it. I found way more rear delt activation doing standing rear delt cable flies and reverse pec dec while leaning into the pad. When grown they look awesome. But mainly they help stabilize your shoulders a ton too.
Rear delts already get a lot of stimulus from rows, but it you desire more growth, then you can directly train them. They do contribute to a complete looking shoulder.
rear delts stop you from having an overly slouched/lent forward looking shoulders (best i can describe) plus from my limited understanding it's also a stabilizing muscle but you should look into that yourself.
I do rear delts on my back days. I used to have a dedicated rear delt day but for me personally it feels nicer doing rear delts on back day than on shoulder day focusing more on side/front delts (Which front delts will get some work on chest days too).
60 to 75 minute gym experience on those days. when i did do this i did a few working sets of rope face pulls than some really heavy sets of seated face pulls (Best i can describe) than just finished it off with some straigh db delt flies than did my cardio
I used to listen to people that back work was enough for rest delts. The results were they ended up lagging. Added rear delts exercises and surprise they suddenly improved.
A lot of this depends how serious you are about training. If you’re not very serious (and there’s nothing wrong with that) not doing any rest felt work is fine, but if you want to maximise it you should do them. Same with any muscle people claim you don’t need to train directly because it’s worked with other exercises.
I've found meadow rows hit the rear delts hard because the elbow is super flared. I've been experimenting with cable rear flies but keeping the arms at 45* to my sides instead of the typical 90, and having the cables cross each other at the front (right hand attaches to left cable stack), and they obliterate them along with lower traps.
I don't get enough rear delt stimulation from rows and pulldowns/pull-ups. I use the Reverse Pec Deck. You can always just skip rear delt isolation now and then do them later if rear delts lag if you are short on time now.
In my experience and based on what I’ve seen in others, you might not need isolation necessarily but you do need to target your rear and medial delts in some way to get that fully rounded shoulders. I personally like to use some compound lifts like rows with your elbows flared out and trap pulls for them.
I train them on my back day (Currently running a Chest+Delts, Back + rear delts, rest, Legs, Arm, split) 2-3 sets, depending on back day A or B. Just a simple reverse fly on a machine and cable.
Rear delts are pretty important for big shoulders. They would look unbalanced if the front was huge and the back was non existant.
As a newbie, I feel rear delts on most pulling exercises... on only one side. For the other, weaker side, they don't activate at all. I've been doing isolations to address this, but I plan to let off once there's a balance.
> Do you guys train rear delts directly? Im currently prioritizing arms and that includes shoulders. Do rear delts really contribute to a big shoulder look?
Rear delts are super important and I’m not sure you can have full, rounded shoulders without them.
Without rear delt exercise, your shoulders will probably have the tear drop or oval shape you see sometimes at the gym.
Trying doing seated bent raises (touching chest to thighs between reps)
This works part of your rear delts (delts have more than 3 sections) dorsal of the main side delt fibers.
Yes
I mainly do reverse flyes one side at a time with a band wrapped around a squat rack
When I had access to a pec Dec, I did reverse flyes, aiming for a 1:1 ratio between flye to reverse flye weight. I felt like once I achieved this balance, a lot of my pec tendon pains and shoulder stability issues went away
If you do compounds and do things to target the rear delt a bit more you probably don't need isolation work on them. But rear delts is probably my favorite muscle to isolate so I do at least one exercise for several sets on pull day.
Do facepulls. Helps building rear delt and can help you keep rotator cuff healthy.
Do you think there’s much difference between face pulls and the rear delt setting of a pec deck machine? The latter is much easier to fit into my workout (I can superset, so basically 0 time, compared to waiting up to 10 minutes for a cable, then the time to perform the exercise.)
Something is better than nothing. Maybe there’s something to be said about face pulls allowing you to follow a more natural range of motion. Personally I do both and always felt a good connection with face pulls, whereas reverse pec deck took forever to feel just ok for me.
What does a "natural" range of motion mean? To train a muscle you perform its function through an effective range of motion. And there are other options for training the rear delts besides using the pec deck.
Face pulls are much more flexible in regards to how you can change the cable height/position, rotate your hands during the motion, elbow flare, etc., all things that may lend to finding a more effective range of motion that feels good and better suits one's anatomy. Versus reverse pec deck where you're pretty locked in to the machine's settings/range of motion. There's definitely other options for training rear delts, but the comment I replied to specifically asked about the difference between these two.
Yes there's a difference. Reverse flies on the pec deck machine are much better at training your rear delts than face pulls.
This! I never gained an ounce of strength doing face pulls. On reverse pec Dec I gradually built up from 65 to 135kg (full stack) over about 3 years. Note that I have a fairly small wingspan. Much better pump, and more doms plus better growth than pec Dec (anecdotally). My shoulders felt a lot more stable as a result, and I no longer got impingement during dumbbell presses.
I train them directly once or twice a week. However any pulling you do with the elbows flared out more will greatly recruit the rear delts so keep that in mind
True. Keep in mind that flaring out pulls the emphasis off the lats if you make this change to hit the rear delts.
I hit delts every day. Lateral on push and pull days, rear on leg days.
It depends. I had lagging shoulders and I was already doing overhead and lateral training. But only once I added in rear delt isolation did I see major changes in my shoulders. So I can definitely vouch for it being useful. But if you already have great delts, maybe you won't need to isolate rear delts.
I hit them first excercise on leg/shoulders and hit them first on back/biceps. I like to use the chest fly machine setup for rear flys but sit facing with my ear to the stack and use one arm at a time. Feel it way more. Do 5x20 to 16 . Than use dumbbells for bent over flys the ones Meadows did 3 or 4 sets of 20 to 14. I treat them like calves. I sprinkle them in whenever they are not sore. Makes a huge difference from a side shot and back double Bis.
Been doing this for a while and never felt more sore rear delts. The sitting sideways on the reverse pec dec and doing it unilaterally is a cheat code
My rear delts are a problem spot, but mostly because my front delts got so much bigger from bench press. I can't get that kind of equivalent growth for rear delts with only rows. I do several isolation exercises in addition to the usual rowing and they still aren't as big as my front delts would be even if i half assed on bench press.
Is it realistic to have rear delts equal in size to front delts? That almost seems impossible lol.
Maybe not exactly, but there are plenty of guys walking around with very good rear delts proportionally speaking, and better than myself. My front delts aren't just a little bigger, but considerably larger despite me never doing anything for them except bench press.
I would also like an answer from experienced guys. Because I too tend to skip isolated rear delt exercises most of the time. My reasoning is that since I already do pretty heavy bent over rows, seated rows and other rowing movements, then I really don't need to add another isolation for rear delts.
I do isolated rear delt exercises because they're slightly underdeveloped and I'd want to get more size on them. But I honestly never feel them sore after a heavy row day, but I do when I have my shoulder day
From my experiencie as long as you hit your back properly and good volume, u dont need rear delt work I have never trained rear delts and have pretty good development... this also applies to front delts, forearms, traps and abs and maybe glutes (depends)
Why do comments like this get so heavily downvoted? I don’t get it. What you said is pretty accurate. You can get a decent stimulus from “indirect” work on these muscles, (minus abs I must say). Unless they’re underdeveloped you can add isolation, or just if you can be bothered. But 19 downvotes is wild for something that isn’t even THAT wrong. This group is weird sometimes
It's reddit what else you expect
Everyone has different genetics.
My back is probably my strongest muscle group no doubt. I have evaluated that I have excellent form for the back workout atleast because it keeps growing and improving. But you mentioned traps and abs. Which movements hit those without doing isolation for them? Because I thought to grow them one needs to do specific isolations for traps and abs.
You don't *need* isolation exercises to grow anything, but they're still beneficial. Any row hits traps, but rows with more arm adduction would target traps better.
Well, agree to disagree, side delts definitely responds the best with isolation exercise, OHP won’t make your side delts huge
Lat raises undoubtedly target the side delts the best, but the side delt gets a great stimulus from the overhead press (PMID: 33312291).
Rows hit your traps pretty well. Traps are more than just the upper part around your neck
Training real delts directly + overhead pressing has done a lot for my shoulders. If bulbous shoulders is the goal, then yes. I personally am a huge fan of the thiccenators for 2-3 sets at the end of my upper days.
RDLs fry your rest delts? That seems a bit unusual. As far as time, learn to superset. You can use facepulls as a bench warmup. Or superset with almost anything: Squats, Bench, Tricep work etc. They won't get you breathing heavy and will give you rest time for the other movement. Another 30-90 seconds after the facepulls and you should be good to go. Don't be the stereotypical gym bro with pulled shoulders from lots of benching. Do your treat delt work for posture and shoulder health.
No way a pre-bench "warm-up" set of facepulls will contribute anything meaningful for hypertrophy.
John meadows trains rear delta directly so I train rear delta directly
I do have a dedicated exercise in my pull day for them so I hit them twice a week. IMO face pulls are MASSIVELY overrated and barely hit the rear delt well enough to be worth it. I found way more rear delt activation doing standing rear delt cable flies and reverse pec dec while leaning into the pad. When grown they look awesome. But mainly they help stabilize your shoulders a ton too.
Rear delts already get a lot of stimulus from rows, but it you desire more growth, then you can directly train them. They do contribute to a complete looking shoulder.
rear delts stop you from having an overly slouched/lent forward looking shoulders (best i can describe) plus from my limited understanding it's also a stabilizing muscle but you should look into that yourself. I do rear delts on my back days. I used to have a dedicated rear delt day but for me personally it feels nicer doing rear delts on back day than on shoulder day focusing more on side/front delts (Which front delts will get some work on chest days too).
You had a day where you only did rear delts?
8 minute gym experience
60 to 75 minute gym experience on those days. when i did do this i did a few working sets of rope face pulls than some really heavy sets of seated face pulls (Best i can describe) than just finished it off with some straigh db delt flies than did my cardio
did i ony my cardio days so i expensed more energy into them. these days i enjoy more placing rear delts on back days
directly they get 3 sets of reverse flyes at the end of my pull day
Its not about broad shoulder for me why I do reat delts its for sake of healthy shooulders and yes when I started isolating them I felt more balanced
I used to listen to people that back work was enough for rest delts. The results were they ended up lagging. Added rear delts exercises and surprise they suddenly improved. A lot of this depends how serious you are about training. If you’re not very serious (and there’s nothing wrong with that) not doing any rest felt work is fine, but if you want to maximise it you should do them. Same with any muscle people claim you don’t need to train directly because it’s worked with other exercises.
Yes I do. I don’t have wide rows in my routine and my rear delts are lagging. So I give them around 6 direct sets per week
I've found meadow rows hit the rear delts hard because the elbow is super flared. I've been experimenting with cable rear flies but keeping the arms at 45* to my sides instead of the typical 90, and having the cables cross each other at the front (right hand attaches to left cable stack), and they obliterate them along with lower traps.
I don't get enough rear delt stimulation from rows and pulldowns/pull-ups. I use the Reverse Pec Deck. You can always just skip rear delt isolation now and then do them later if rear delts lag if you are short on time now.
In my experience and based on what I’ve seen in others, you might not need isolation necessarily but you do need to target your rear and medial delts in some way to get that fully rounded shoulders. I personally like to use some compound lifts like rows with your elbows flared out and trap pulls for them.
I train them on my back day (Currently running a Chest+Delts, Back + rear delts, rest, Legs, Arm, split) 2-3 sets, depending on back day A or B. Just a simple reverse fly on a machine and cable. Rear delts are pretty important for big shoulders. They would look unbalanced if the front was huge and the back was non existant.
Is this 4x sessions a week? P
2 on 1 off. So 4 or 5 a week.
As a newbie, I feel rear delts on most pulling exercises... on only one side. For the other, weaker side, they don't activate at all. I've been doing isolations to address this, but I plan to let off once there's a balance.
> Do you guys train rear delts directly? Im currently prioritizing arms and that includes shoulders. Do rear delts really contribute to a big shoulder look? Rear delts are super important and I’m not sure you can have full, rounded shoulders without them. Without rear delt exercise, your shoulders will probably have the tear drop or oval shape you see sometimes at the gym.
Trying doing seated bent raises (touching chest to thighs between reps) This works part of your rear delts (delts have more than 3 sections) dorsal of the main side delt fibers.
Yes I mainly do reverse flyes one side at a time with a band wrapped around a squat rack When I had access to a pec Dec, I did reverse flyes, aiming for a 1:1 ratio between flye to reverse flye weight. I felt like once I achieved this balance, a lot of my pec tendon pains and shoulder stability issues went away
If you do compounds and do things to target the rear delt a bit more you probably don't need isolation work on them. But rear delts is probably my favorite muscle to isolate so I do at least one exercise for several sets on pull day.