Dumbbell Scaption

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.

Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the traps anchor the shoulder blade against the load.

Every exercise for:ShouldersTraps

How this movement works

One joint moves, and it moves the load away from the body. With nothing recruited to assist, the target muscle reaches its own limit rather than the limit of the weakest link in a chain — which makes this useful for adding volume after the heavy compound work, not for opening a session.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.

Every exercise using:Dumbbell

These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:

• External Rotation with Bandband
• External Rotation with Cablecable
• Handstand Push-Upsbody only
• Jerk Balancebarbell
• Kettlebell Arnold Presskettlebell

Difficulty

Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.

Of the 141 shoulders exercises in this database, 74 are listed at beginner level.