Rear delts, light or heavy??

[danilo7559]

ok so we hit the big shoulder presses heavy, 6-8 heavy reps so this makes us strong, and strong muscles are big muscles right! so with rear delts why the hell do so may people and trainers use light reps!!! (no scientific study to show that rear delts respond to higher reps that ive read) so why not hit rear delts with heavy weights to???????
this question could apply to forearms and abs to i guess

[jfalco]

I think you see a lot of people using light weight on rear delts because a lot of people have weak rear delts. Personally when I hit my rear delts I find that at one weight I can do 15 reps, but when I move up to the next size db I can't lift it with good form, so I do light weight, lots of reps. I don't push it too much when I'm doing isolation exercises on my shoulders because I have a bum shoulder and I'm afraid of hurting it worse. I see no reason why rear delts should react any differently then the rest of the delt.

[danilo7559]

haha yeh me to, with one set of dbells i can get about 12 good reps, i move up 2 kg and struggle to get 2 proper reps!! i can also lift a lot more with bent over raises than side laterals.

[Morskaya_Pekhota]

Get a bunch of 45's, put them on a bar and press it over your head a few times. You'll have delts like bowling balls in no time. Doing bent reverse flys with 20lbs won't do shit for your rear delts compared to a 300lb military press for reps.

[roofboss]

300lb military press......dayum...you da man.

[danilo7559]

300lb military press, i weigh 150lb il give it a go.
actually doing rear delts with 20kg (45lb) dumbbells will give you rounded shoulders, i certainly dont see my rear delts sticking out after presses but they look crazy after rear raises. dont think theres a true bodybuilder out there that wouldnt do rear delts

[Morskaya_Pekhota]

dont think theres a true bodybuilder out there that wouldnt do rear delts

You're talking to one now. I've done heavy compound movements and Olympic lifts almost exclusively for the past three years and I've made tremendous progress, especially in my shoulders. I've never gained so fast until I stopped isolating every individual head of every individual muscle and focused on big, heavy lifts in the Yates/Mentzer school of thought.

[danilo7559]

yeh of course your delts would be huge lifting those weights, but then your rear delts wouldnt grow because they dont press. the muscles you use will be huge but not your rear delts. thats like saying i do 250kg (not sure in lbs) deadlift for ten reps my lats are really growing!! wouldnt happen. im not saying drop the heavy lift (i make dbell press the main exercise for shoulders) but dont think that will make your rear delts grow.
you also cant say well it works for me because all our muscles work the same and no ones rear delts have made them press anything.

[Morskaya_Pekhota]

I completely understand where you're coming from, Danilo, I just disagree. In my experience {with my body} my rear delts haven't responded well to targeted isolation work. I tried it for a long time and got nowhere. It was the same with all of my smaller muscle groups; biceps, triceps, calves, et cetera. It wasn't until I stopped focusing on them with movements intended to target them {like the bent rev flys you're talking about} and focusing on increasing my weight in movements where they play a supporting role {presses, pulls, rows} that they really started to grow. I haven't done a lateral raise or a bicep curl or a tricep pressdown since last summer, yet all three muscle groups are growing like crazy. Different strokes for different folks.

To answer your original question, which I failed to do.. regardless of how you choose to work your rear delts, always go heavy {barring any injuries, naturally}. If I'm not intimidated by the weight I'm about to use, I'm selling myself short. Nobody ever got to be huge training like a soccermom.

[gpack28]

My rear delts get some pretty hefty work during my lat pulldowns and rows. I believe you usually see "lighter" weights while working this muscle because the db/cable/handle is held at full arms length. This creates a lot of torque around the shoulder joint even with smaller wieghts.