The Body Sculpting Bible for Women (79 page)

Stand in the center of the cables, lean slightly forward from your hips while maintaining erect posture.

Keep your knees bent and your abdominals engaged. Hold a handle in each hand.

Pull the handles in until your arms cross under your chest.

TECHNIQUE AND FORM

Extend your arms in an upward arc-like movement, until they are parallel to the floor.

At the top position, hold for a couple of seconds before returning to the crossed position.

Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.

Seated Rear Delt Machine

The seated rear-delt machine is a great exercise to use when you’re looking to add variety to your shoulder training. It will give you the ability to really focus on isolating the rear deltoids without the possibility of lower back injury and the burden of having to bend over at the hips. This is a perfect exercise for those who feel dizzy when bent over or feel too much chest compression from having to lean on the incline bench. All you have to do to begin exercising is set the pin to the desired resistance and position the level of the seat.

VARIATION:
A variation you can try without a machine sues a bench and one dumbbell. Simply place one knee and one hand on a bench, bend over, keeping the lumbar curve in your lower back, and lift the dumbbell up, bending your elbow so your arm creates a 90-degree angle.

PROPER ALIGNMENT

Sit yourself on the machine and position your body so that you are sitting upright with your chest flush against the vertical pad. There should be a seat adjustment that will allow you to raise and lower the seat. Bring the seat to a height where your chin can rest neutrally on the edge of the pad in front of you. This is a good height to optimize the proper anatomical position for this shoulder exercise.

Keep your feet flat on the floor and pointing straight ahead during the movement. Also, keep your knees pointing straight ahead at all times. On most rear-delt machines, you will find inner thigh pads for added stability. Keep your thighs snug against the pads to give you the added support needed to secure your core musculature.

This machine is often used as a pec deck and gives you the option of adjusting the arm bars to your liking. For this particular exercise, you will want the arm bars brought to the back position so they are just about touching one another. You also might have the option of taking your handgrip in a palms facing position or an over-hand position. Take the overhand position since this will take much stress off the wrists and allow better muscle control and isolation of the rear shoulders, thus negating the triceps muscles as much as possible from the movement.

Make sure that you keep a slight bend in the elbows at all times. This bend of the arms will help maintain focus of resistance on the rear delts and off the triceps. You might reach a level of fatigue where you are forced to use the triceps muscles to move the weight. When you reach this point, either resist the temptation or simply lower the weight.