Bent Lateral Raises

Bent lateral raises are a great exercise for working the posterior deltoid. Start by holding a dumbbell in each hand while you bend forward at the waist by about 45 degrees. Keep your legs slightly bent and your back straight at all times as you perform the movement. While keeping your arms fairly straight, lift the dumbbells by laterally raising your arms.




Raise your arms until they are about parallel to the floor and squeeze your shoulder blades together at the end of the movement. Return to the starting position under control and repeat the process.

Tips

* This exercise mainly develops the posterior deltoid, which is often weaker than the other parts of the shoulders due to an imbalance in training. Comparatively, the anterior deltoid is usually quite strong since it is used in almost all chest-strengthening exercises. When the shoulder blades come together at the top of the movement, the lower part of the trapezius and the rhomboids contract as well.
* The key to this movement is to really focus on your form. The posterior deltoid is not a very big muscle, so you do not want to be using too heavy of weights. If you use dumbbells that are too heavy for you to complete the exercise with proper form, you will be forced to use momentum and the muscles of the back to assist you in lifting the weights, thus robbing your posterior deltoid of the benefits of the movement. To ensure you are performing the exercise with proper form, it may be a good idea to execute the movement while lying facedown on an incline bench to reduce the temptation of using momentum to lift the weights.


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