in this video I'm showing you my top three shoulder exercises for round 3D delts one exercise each for the front side and rear heads and for some extra scientific credibility I'm bringing in exercise scientist Dr Mike isrel who's going to share his top three as well up first front delts now a very common mistake here is actually giving the front delts too much volume since they already get a lot of stimulation from any chest work in your program in fact this German study from the 1990s found that bodybuilders have five times the front delt size as non-li but only three times the side delt size as non- lifters so they often are overemphasized would you agree with that like side and rear are more important from a bodying even more to an extreme perspective I agree with that so much I I go overboard and I say rear Del training is overrated as well if you're training your back properly your rear delts should be very welld developed you can just pour a lot of volume into the side delts and also visually if you ever see someone who has big shoulders and you look at them you're like oh those delts are really big almost in every case it's the side delts that are actually very big and the rear delts of of course construct the rest of it the front delts matter but it's side delts that really count so I think side delt training should be 70 to 90% of delt training wow so while the side delts are clearly the most important the other two heads still complete the 3D look so let's start with the anterior or front head my number one exercise here is a machine shoulder press and that's simply because being seated increases stability which will ensure virtually all the tension is being directed to the shoulders where you want it and secondly most people can push machine exercises closer to failure without worrying about dropping the weight or breaking technique and I like this panata machine in particular because it allows for a huge range of motion and a big stretch on the front delts in the bottom so one thing I noticed uh training with Mike on his channel as well he really really emphasizes controlled technique and a deep stretch and also in in the stretch position he tends to do a lot of pausing which can be very humbling in terms of the amount of weight that you use so that's something I actually don't typically do I'm I'm a little bit more of like a constant tension guy most of the time so that's been really cool I feel like I'll continue implementing some of that in my training oh and another thing I like about this machine is that it's unilateral meaning each shoulder is forced to work individually which can be great for fixing any left to right shoulder imbalances that feels really good doesn't it yeah see yeah a panata is that okay to say I'll usually hit these for 6 to 10 reps and of course any decent shoulder press machine will get the job done and if you don't have access to one you can get a very similar effect with a seated dumbbell shoulder press which is also unilateral and forces each shoulder to work individually okay so Dr Mike's number one pick for the front delts is an easy bar front raise and he gave two reasons why one of the reasons is that it gives a ton of motion to the front delts a huge range of motion there and also because it is an isolation exercise and that's pretty rare to see for front delts most people choose a compound press which is cool and all but if your tip volume is where it is if your pecs are sore if your shoulder joints are upset with you because you've been doing a lot of pressing maybe the overhead press is not in the cards if I wanted the maximum effect of something like this I would actually do it on a free motion machine so that I could move my hand behind the plane of my body and get a huge stretch to the front belt but a lot of people don't have access to a machine like that and this is a fine alternative exercise it's a similar thing so the cues here is that you want to keep your chest up if you cave your chest you're not stretching your front delts as much what you want to do is essentially it's like a curl except you never bend your elbows so it just comes up all the way nice and high and then you milk the Ecentric and it's going to be hardest here all the way down chest up at the bottom oh goodbye front belts do you think it's dangerous to go beyond this point here I think there's never been a reason to suspect that if you know Anatomy things that are causing joint pain are tend to be not so great for the joints but if you can do this without any joint pain I mean listen if there is something from a cupboard you want that's up there or you're like well I would get it but I don't want to be crippled for life that's not the case I think it's totally fine and mik explained that for these he uses relatively higher reps in the 10 to 20 range with a more explosive positive and a slow and controlled 4 to 5c negative especially maintaining control at the midpoint where tension is the highest finish resisting oh wow very nice doesn't take a lot man I'll say this if people are uh cutting out this part they're missing out on a lot I would say the most effective part of this movement generally there are some nuances here is from 45° to 135° here to here so I can't lie this is like the craziest front delt pump I think I've had possibly ever okay so with front delt out of the way we're hitting the most important head for 3D delts the side delts so I'm going to let you go first for side delt what would be your number one there are many number ones you're my number one what's the number one number one well an exercise that I think is really top tier is what I call the super ROM lateral super Ang motion lateral exactly like a lateral race just keep going okay and at any point do I do this or this or no just okay so for me this feels natural to kind of kind of Thumbs Up it a little bit sure is that okay thumbs up it as little as possible on the way but try to keep your pinkies up but if you run into stuff where it feels weird you can thumbs up naturally you like this better because activates the side Bel yeah yeah for sure and let me just explain that very briefly if I thumb up it you can see that the resistance path is in line with the front delt fibers if I do this now the resistance is in line with the side delt fibers if you feel pain doing this then consider going thumbs up it might be better sure but in my case this feels great great I love it so why not Mike recommends doing these for moderate to higher reps in the 10 to 20 range and once again really emphasizes good control on the negative on each and every rep all right so my number one side delt exercise is a crossbody cable wire raise most people when they do lateral raises go directly out to the side there's nothing wrong with that the main reason I like these is the stretch you get here if you were going to stretch your side delt you wouldn't just hold it here you're not getting a ton of stretch here if you pull it across your body now you have more stretch on the delt also most people think of the shoulders as having three distinct teds the front side and rear but Anatomy research shows there are more like seven deltoid compartments each having unique muscle fibers that fan out in slightly different directions so hitting the delts from slightly different angles is more likely to make sure that all the fibers get hit evenly and here's how I do that position my torso so that I feel that stretch come in on my side delt and then I'll sweep the weight out and back almost as if drying and flicking a sord so so we feel the nice stretch and then we're up out and back beautiful control Jeff that's awesome okay nice next let's take a look at our top two exercises for the posterior head Mike's number one pick here is a super ROM reverse cable fly I've actually never done them the way he coaches them so I picked up on some really great cues a couple of really important cues here first you want to go past your hand connection yep just like that people say well wouldn't that create a symmetry totally but you just every other set what you're going to do is you're going to switch your hands which one goes top the bottom and a big thing is you want generally to keep your elbows locked out so that you can make sure it's all real delt you will not be able to use as much load that way but minimizing the load while maximizing muscle involvement is a really good thing and here's a big one further back Jeff go ahead and pull all the way back yes and here we get a peak contraction to the muscle you can feel the burn accumulating while you do it and then slowly peel that muscle muscle out on the way back so it's a really good thing to really Crunch at the top it won't cost you a ton of reps cuz it's easy there but you'll connect to that rear delt typically I would stop about here probably but now I'm going to here yeah and that extra bit Yeah makes it way harder here's the best part they actually start to accumulate metabolites they hurt more and more in that position you take that pain and you go okay I know exactly where my rols are because they hurt there and then I slowly Arc out in its Madness and I hate it and then it stretches like crazy and then the whole thing starts again that's right and my top pick for the rear delts is the reverse pec deck and honestly Dr Mike gave me the single best queue I've ever heard for this exercise here the queue will massively reduce how much you're lifting but will hit that Target muscle better for a good real delt training you want to reach forward really far also you'll notice it pre-stretches the rear delts you're not pulling you're arcing out to try to paint brush as far of a distance as you possibly can punch forward yes and then sweep out paint brush out as much as you can it's like if you imagine that there is like you're standing on top of a pile of money and there's a camera measuring you get to keep all of the money you do this with your hands yes let's go and I'm just going to show my last two reps here and notice that at no point do I allow myself to pull my arms in I'm sweeping my arms out and painting as much of the floor as I can on each and every rep and then as if another as if you're going to do another one thing since I've been training with Mike a little bit that I've heard you say quite a bit is as if you're going to do another I really like that que because it forces you to be intentional with that last negative yes do it as if you're going to do another one so you're controlling controlling controlling pause now you're and then let go and that last negative may be one of the most muscle growth promoting portions of any rep you will ever do in any set so why skip that a lot of guys go all the way up and they go uh and it's like oh you so good so close so close there are tons of off camera analogies to make but I know you run a nice wholesome Channel and I will just shut off [Music] [Laughter] down who are you are you the powered by ice cream fella that's me you're an old fan again you don't have to go hard or anything like that but uh just just so we have some b-roll then I have to go home cuz like you're you're kind of you're kind of locked into just do what the machine says I used to do a lot lot of standing barbell overhead pressing yeah I know and I got to a lot of straight oh thank is that guy actually Thor sweet we're on a desert island with all these machines we have to do a front delt exercise what one do you pick this is a very highly equipped desert island so if you're stopping from here to here it's like what this whole other part it's like eating half a slice of pizza and throwing the other half away that's a common comment won't it hit your junk on the way down like yes if you were wildly coordinated and you deserve you have a junk destroy one more yeah do one from the rear and then slow on the way down is a big one okay I'm going to get the sleeves up oh yeah oh did you see that I changed my mind slow right away slow slow and then slow slow slow slow slow I want to give a big thank you to Mike his channel is called Renaissance periodization he does all kinds of videos exactly like this it's just really cool tips and cues and tweaks that I don't think you'll hear on any other channel also want to give a quick shout out to the gym pure muscle and fitness they let us film here they even turn the music down for us so I really appreciate that thank you guys so much for watching don't forget to leave us a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and I'll see you guys all here in the next video