Beginner

Prone Incline Rear-Delt Raise

Lying chest-down on an incline bench pins your torso in place so you cannot cheat the weight up with your lower back or a hip swing. That isolation, plus the way the incline angles the arms, makes the rear delts and mid-traps do clean, focused work. It is one of the safest and most reliable ways to bring up a lagging posterior shoulder.

Equipment
Bench, Dumbbell
Body part
Shoulder
Type
Strength
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Deltoid Posterior
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Horizontal Pull
Muscles worked
Target
Deltoid Posterior
Secondary
Trapezius Middle, Infraspinatus
Tertiary
Trapezius Lower, Deltoid Middle

How to do it

  1. 1

    Set an adjustable bench to about a 30 to 45 degree incline and lie face-down against the pad.

  2. 2

    Hold a dumbbell in each hand hanging straight down below your shoulders, palms facing each other.

  3. 3

    Keep a slight bend in the elbows and brace your core against the bench.

  4. 4

    Raise both dumbbells out to the sides until your upper arms are level with your torso.

  5. 5

    Squeeze the rear delts at the top, then lower slowly under control and repeat.

Tips

  • Lead with your elbows and stop at torso height; going higher shifts work onto the traps.
  • Keep your chin tucked and forehead near the pad so your neck stays relaxed.
  • Use light weight and a deliberate tempo; the rear delts respond to control, not load.

Variations

Common mistakes

  • The chest pushes off the pad at the top to find a little more height, which puts back exactly the cheating the bench was chosen to remove.
  • The bench is set too upright, so the arms hang across the chest rather than straight down and the movement slides toward a lateral raise.
  • The feet have nowhere to brace, so you slide down the pad rep by rep and end up hanging on with your arms rather than lying on the bench.
  • The shoulder blades pinch together first and the arms follow, which makes it a mid-trap squeeze with a rear-delt name; let the arms lead and the blades ride along.
  • The dumbbells are lowered until the plates rest on the floor under the bench, which unloads the delts completely between reps; stop short of the floor and keep the tension.

Frequently asked

How many sets and reps of the prone incline rear-delt raise should a beginner do?
Three sets of 12 to 15 with dumbbells of 2 to 6 kg, and there is nothing embarrassing about the smallest pair on the rack. Because the bench removes momentum, the working weight is far lighter than in a standing bent-over raise. Progress by pausing for a second at torso height on every rep, then by climbing to 20 reps, and only then by moving up a pair.
What can I use instead of an incline bench for the prone rear-delt raise?
Lie face down along a sturdy raised surface such as a low bench, ottoman or coffee table with your arms hanging over the sides, which gives enough clearance for a short range. A stability ball under the chest works if you have one. Standing bent over at the hips is the usual answer but puts the lower back back into the picture, so a cable or band rear-delt fly is the better swap when no bench is available.
What is the prone incline rear-delt raise good for?
Pinning the torso to a pad makes it one of the few rear-delt movements that cannot be cheated, so it suits anyone whose posterior shoulder lags behind the front and anyone who wants shoulder work that asks nothing of the lower back. It is a poor choice when you want heavy loading, since the position caps the weight sharply, and lying face down is uncomfortable enough for some people that a chest-supported seated or cable version is the more practical pick.

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