6 Best Deltoid Exercises for Men 

Guide to best deltoid exercises for strength and endurance (Photo via Unspash/ Dollar Gill)
Guide to best deltoid exercises for strength and endurance (Photo via Unspash/ Dollar Gill)

Deltoid exercises allow you to develop your shoulders from various angles, especially boosting the three delts - lateral, anterior, and rear delts.

Whenever developing any muscle group, it’s important to focus on all the parts. So, when trying to develop the delts, you must do exercises that help in developing all three shoulder heads.


Best Deltoid Exercises for Men

Here are six of the best deltoid exercises you can do to ensure you’re able to work on all three shoulder heads:


1) Overhead Press

It is one of the best deltoid exercises. It’s an extremely important compound movement, working on the shoulders and triceps as well. You can do an overhead press using barbells or dumbbells.

To do the exercise, hold the dumbbells or the barbell with both hands, and place it at shoulder level. Next, push it upwards by extending your arms. Keep a strong muscle-mind connection to ensure you’re engaging your shoulders.

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Finally, keep your core engaged to maintain balance and stability for the exercise.


2) Front Raise

Another exercise you can do for the anterior deltoids is the front raise. You can do it unilaterally, i.e., one arm at a time. Ideally, that will enable you to fix any muscle imbalance.

To do the exercise, hold the dumbbells in each hand, and lift your arms upwards while keeping them extended in front of you.

You can maintain a slight bend from your elbows, but make sure you’re not using your biceps or forearms to lift the dumbbells. It’s important you use your shoulders to lift the dumbbell for this exercise.


3) Upright Row

The next deltoid you should work on are the lateral delts. A great pick from the best deltoid exercises is the upright row.

You can do this exercise using dumbbells, barbells, or cables. If you’ve never done this exercise before, it’s better to begin with cables. To do the exercise, attach a straight bar to the anchor, and adjust it to the bottom of the cable pulley system.

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When you pull the bar towards yourself, keep the pressure on your shoulders at all times. It’s important to avoid pulling with your arms.


4) Lateral Raise

The next exercise for your lateral deltoids is the lateral raise. If you wish to, you can do this exercise on cables or using dumbbells as well.

You can focus on intensity over volume, and use a lighter weight to do a higher number of reps.

5) Reverse Fly

The final delt to focus on for the shoulders is the rear delts. More often than not, rear delts get worked on when you’re doing compound movements for lats, but it’s important to do exercises that focus only on them.

Reverse flys allow you to activate the rear delts along with the smaller muscles surrounding the region. You can use the pec dec machine for this exercise, or use a pair of dumbbells.

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Eventually, it boils down to which exercise allows you to engage the delts properly.


6) Face Pull

The next exercise you can do for your rear deltoids are face pulls. You need to attach the rope to the cable pulley machine, and adjust the anchor slightly above your forehead. To do the exercise, pull the ropes towards your forehead till your rear delts are engaged.

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Be careful not to pull it too hard or in an explosive manner. If you lose control and pull too hard, you could hurt yourself with the ropes hitting your forehead.

Conclusion

What you eat is just as crucial as what you lift when you engage in any type of deltoid exercise. For your muscles to get bigger and stronger, you need to eat the correct kinds of foods.

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Edited by Bhargav