Deltoid Training with Calisthenics: A Guide For The Anterior, Lateral, and Posterior Delts

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raykay

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Introduction

Healthy and balanced shoulders are essential to continued progress in upper body training, and I often observe these muscle groups not being properly developed and isolated in most trainees. Regardless of whether your goals are for performance or aesthetics, a small amount of time dedicated to shoulder isolation work can have great benefits for injury prevention.

Many ideas from this guide are based on the work of Dr. Mike Israetel. Here are the links for context.

https://rpstrength.com/front-delt-training-tips-hypertrophy/

https://rpstrength.com/expert-advice/side-delt-size-training-tips

https://rpstrength.com/expert-advice/rear-delt-size-training-tips

First, I should address a few common misconceptions.
  • Compound Exercises Alone Are Sufficient To Maximize Deltoid Growth
    • Compound exercises are essential, but they do not give your lateral and posterior deltoids the stimulus needed to stay balanced. Many trainees have anterior deltoids that are far outpacing the development of their lateral/posterior delts. These muscles are built for endurance and constant use. Fatiguing them with enough volume from compounds alone is impractical, as they tend to respond best to higher rep ranges (10-30 reps)
  • You Cannot Easily Isolate Lateral/Rear Delts With Calisthenics
    • Certainly not true, it just takes the right selection of exercises and (ideally) a pair of gymnastics rings. The free movement of the rings is able to emulate the movement of machines such as cables in the gym. Thankfully, the deltoid muscles are relatively small and weak, and can be trained for high reps with sub-maximal loads. With good training principles you can get comparable results to training with free weights.
    • NOTE: Almost all of the ring exercises presented can also be replicated with just an anchored resistance band. I have also included some non-ring variations
A few pointers for deltoid training
  • Strict Form: Avoid the use of momentum or form cheating and you'll be able to get away with very light loads, use full ROM and leverage to your advantage.
  • Volume Over Intensity: These are isolation movements, focus on training them with volume rather than a high intensity.
    • The average person can recover from lateral and rear delt isolation work 2-5 days a week, with 2 exercises per workouts of 3-4x5-30 reps.
    • However, your anterior delts can't recover quite as easily from volume as your lateral and posterior deltoids, so use a lower number of reps and sets. Remember they are already being worked quite hard from dips, pushups, and hspu/pike presses.
  • Variety: Alternate variations occasionally to avoid localized wear and tear. Use more than one exercise per training cycle.
  • Intensification Techniques: Refer to the Renaissance Periodization articles above to make the most of these exercises and get a better training stimulus.
  • Leverage/Shoulder Structure: I have found that different deltoid exercises can be very effective or ineffective based on an individual's shoulder structure. If an exercise is uncomfortable for you when done with correct form, and you can't explain the discomfort from an injury or lack of mobility, it may just not fit your anatomy very well. Experiment with other exercises until you find what you like. Individuals with longer wingspans and/or heavier arms may find some of these exercises more challenging.
Anterior Deltoid Exercises

Anterior Deltoid exercises should involve raising your arm away and in front of your body, either to a 90 degree or overhead position (shoulder flexion) and back for full ROM.
Lateral Deltoid Exercises

Lateral Deltoid exercises should involve raising your arm away from your body in a lateral direction (shoulder abduction).
  • Rings Lateral Rollout:
    • For obvious reasons they are likely the most challenging lateral delt exercise option. Practice with caution.
  • Rings Y Raises
  • Ring Lateral Glides:
  • Angled Side Bridge:
    • https://exrx.net/WeightExercises/Obliques/BWAngledSideBridge
    • Non-Rings option. Make sure to maintain full ROM, the shorter leverage on your delts means you can put a bit more load on this exercise than some of the other options. Even if you have rings these are still challenging enough to be worthwhile.
  • T Press Up
  • Lying Lateral Raise
  • Standing Lateral Raise
    • Non-Rings Option, Superset with Lying Lateral Raise
    • Use as a secondary exercise or finisher for high reps. Do not need a weight if you're doing multiple sets of 15-30 reps.
Posterior Deltoid Exercises

Posterior Deltoid exercises should involve moving your arm away from yourself and backward (shoulder extension). I have also included some exercises for scapular retraction and depression.
Isometric Variations

For isometric deltoid exercises refer to my post on isometric training (linked below).

https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweight...a_list_of_bodyweight_isometrics_by_body_part/
 
@raykay Great post, thank you! Well written and informative.

I do think that one of the weaknesses of calisthenics training is a lack of proper lateral deltoid isolation exercises. The exercises you listed are great, but I find some of them (like the angled side bridge) awkward. Of the ones you listed, Ring Y Raises are probably my favorite exercise. Since I own dumbbells, I do side raises supersetted with tricep isolation work after my compound exercises. You don’t need a lot of weight, 10-15 kg should be enough.

I highly recommend resistance bands for shoulder training. Face pulls and pull aparts are my favorite rear delt exercises and can easily be done with a band. Also, bands are cheap and mobile. Some of the lateral delt exercises can also be emulated with a band (like side raises).

Again, thank you for the comprehensive post!
 
@noita I agree, light to moderate resistance bands are very practical for shoulder training. I chose to focus on bodyweight exercises as those resistance band exercises are much better known and can very quickly be found online.
 
@raykay What are you thoughts on (what I think are called) pike push ups? I put my feet on something elevated, about a foot and a half or two feet high, and then use push up handled I made, so that I can go lower without getting stopped by my head on the floor. So, I guess I'm basically in an upside-down L shape, with the horizontal being my legs and the vertical being my arms and torso.

It feels like this is a reasonably close bodyweight version of a military press.

Thoughts?
 
@ibbj Pike pushup is similar to an overhead press. This post focuses on side and rear delts, which pike pushup don’t really target.
 
@lilly159 Kudbettin has summed it up pretty well. The pike pushup is an example of a pressing compound exercise, it's hitting your front delts predominantly. So to build your lateral and rear delts you're going to need to do some accessories targetting those muscles.

So training would consist of pressing and pulling compound movements + some accessories. Your comparison to the military press is accurate, they are similar.
 
@raykay Great great post brother. Personally I use bands for my mid and rear delts. I do band face pulls for the mid delts and band pull apart for the rear delts. It's just very convenient that I don't need a ring/trx to do them as bands can be carried and used anywhere.

Also bret Contreras found that band face pulls have an higher mid delt activation than dumbell lateral raises : https://www.t-nation.com/training/inside-the-muscles-best-shoulders-and-trap-exercises/

Different ways to skin a cat, will definitely try some of those exercises you listed !
 
@khohanguc I love Bret's stuff, I picked up his Glute Book last Christmas and it's an unbelievable amount of quality information. No exaggeration, it's a 500+ page textbook.
 
@raykay So would it be easier or faster to use some weights or resistance bands?

Like it's sort of "cheating" on calisthenics but I kinda already do that with using bands and sandbags. Some stuff specifically for shoulders already. Also weighted squats and for deadlifts. Also some of the core work from some versions of the RR has bands for anti-rotation.

I'd kinda expect most people would need to worry about lateral and posterior heads the most. At least that has been my concern when already doing push-up and dip progressions. I do rows but with elbow in so it doesn't really hit the same as the delt row or a face pull might. These do seem good for posterior but the lateral heads seems more of a challenge to get right with bodyweight only.

As a side I would wonder how much it matters. For aesthetics it's kinda obvious but if it's a challenge to work I got to wonder what the practically might be.
 
@raymo Don't worry about cheating on calisthenics, bodyweight training is just a tool like any other. The distinctions between bodyweight training and weight training are largely arbitrary, it's marketing.

Weights and resistance bands are very convenient, if you have access to them you may as well use them. However, there's not a huge learning curve for most of these bodyweight exercises, so it tends to even out. But if you don't have access to rings or a suspension trainer, then the bodyweight options are much more limited.

The practicality is having balanced and healthy shoulders. If your goals are not aesthetic then you can probably manage with a few sets of lateral delt work and a few sets of posterior delt work twice a week. Maintenance volume is about 6 sets a week for each. The isolation exercises wouldn't have much impact on your overall recovery, especially at that low of a volume.
 
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