How to Do the Rear Delt Fly Without Cheating
The rear delt fly is one of those go-to moves that you've seen people doing just about every time you've stepped foot in a weight room. It's so popular because it's so simple; the most common approach to the exercise requires just grabbing a set of dumbbells, bending over, and raising the weights.
This simplicity is more than a bit deceiving. If you want to make the most of the rear delt fly to actually target your rear delts, the part of the muscle on the back of your shoulders whose main role is horizontal abduction of the shoulder (in other words, spreading your arms apart in a horizontal position away from your body's midline), you'll need to have picture perfect form—and that's not how most lifters go about their fly. Instead, they'll flap their arms around, or slack on the posture so that the lats and lower back takes on some of the load.
Men's Health fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. has a simple solution to improve your rear delt fly form: just add an adjustable bench. By putting your chest against the bench's pad, you'll offload potential stress to your lower back from poor bent-over posture while also making it tougher to cheat using body English. Just remember, you'll need to adjust to the new format and the whole point is to move with strict form, so don't be afraid to start off with light weights.
How to Do the Rear Delt Fly
●Set an incline bench to a relatively low angle, lower than you would for exercises like incline dumbbell presses. Sit on the bench holding a pair of dumbbells and lean down so that your chest rests on the back pad, facing toward the ground.
●Plant your feet on the ground and squeeze your glutes and ab muscles; your face shouldn't be resting on the bench pad. "Think of breathing your abs aggressively into the bench, never letting your torso lose contact with it," says Samuel.
●Squeeze your shoulder blades to lift the weights out in a wide arch, keeping a slight bend in your elbows rather than fully straightening your arms. Keep the movement wide to maintain the focus on your rear delts, instead of slipping down into your lats.
●Pause for a beat at the top, emphasizing the squeeze to your shoulder blades. Then, lower back down to the starting position with control.
●Perform 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps.
How to Use the Mixed Cadence Approach for the Rear Delt Fly
This approach will allow you to rack up volume, emphasizing the muscle contraction at the top of the movement.
●Repeat each step for the rear delt fly up until you finish one rep. After the first rep, immediately repeat the movement, but pause for a longer beat at the top of the second rep.
●Once you lower the weight, pause for a longer beat at the bottom to readjust before moving onto the next rep.
●That's one pair of reps; continue by performing 3 sets of 6 to 8 pairs.
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