maratoolSeated Bent-Over Rear Delt Raise
How to do the seated bent-over rear delt raise
- Place a couple of dumbbells looking forward in front of a flat bench.
- Sit on the end of the bench with your legs together and the dumbbells behind your calves.
- Bend at the waist while keeping the back straight in order to pick up the dumbbells. The palms of your hands should be facing each other as you pick them. This will be your starting position.
- Keeping your torso forward and stationary, and the arms slightly bent at the elbows, lift the dumbbells straight to the side until both arms are parallel to the floor. Exhale as you lift the weights. (Note: avoid swinging the torso or bringing the arms back as opposed to the side.)
- After a one second contraction at the top, slowly lower the dumbbells back to the starting position.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.
Every exercise for:Shoulders
How this movement works
One joint changes angle and the resistance travels toward you along a single arc. Nothing is positioned to help, so tension stays where you aimed it and the usable load drops sharply against a multi-joint pull for the same muscle. Protect the range of motion; buying weight by shortening the arc defeats the point.
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:
- Seated Cable Shoulder Presscable
- Seated Front Deltoidbody only
- Seated Military Pressbarbell + bench
- Shoulder Press - With Bandsband
- Smith Machine One-Arm Upright Rowmachine
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 141 shoulders exercises in this database, 46 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.