The first thing that catches your eye when evaluating an athlete’s athletic physique is the width of his shoulders. The T-shaped body shape is an athlete's calling card. And shoulders play an important role in this form. For their beautiful appearance, you need to train the corresponding muscles - the upper trapezoid, as well as the middle delta. If the trapezoid gives shoulder height, a beautiful and rounded delta emphasizes massiveness and athleticism. For pumping the latter, such an exercise as breeding standing dumbbells is ideal. This exercise will increase the average delta and thus emphasize the line of the shoulders.
The benefits of exercise
Standing dumbbell breeding is a great, isolated exercise that will help you develop an average bundle of deltas and can also prevent a problem such as stiffness of the shoulder joints. Exercise will allow you to well load the shoulders and form them rounded. Therefore, it should be done regularly.
Exercise technique
1. In the starting position, you need to take dumbbells in your hands, put your feet shoulder width apart. The back should be flat, with a deflection in the lower back. Hands with dumbbells are slightly in contact with the legs and at the same time turned to them by the palms. The palms are spread out by the little fingers a little outward. The elbows are slightly bent. The chin should be parallel to the floor, you need to look directly in front of you, preferably in the mirror, to monitor your movements and correct errors in the performance of the exercise.
2. Once the starting position is occupied correctly, tensing the muscles of the middle delta, you need to gradually raise the dumbbells to shoulder level, that is, so that the arms are parallel to the floor. Hands should not be higher than elbows. The little fingers should be turned up, as if pouring water from the hands. At this point, you need to hold your hands to achieve maximum load. The delay should not be longer than one second. Then also smoothly need to lower them to their original position.
The nuances of the exercise
As soon as the hands fell, you need to do it all over again. When lowering the hands, they do not need to touch the legs or relax, as this removes the load from the muscles and the effectiveness of the exercise decreases. Hands should always move in the plane of the body. In the active phase of the exercise, that is, when raising your hands, you need to take a smooth breath, and when lowering - a smooth exhale.
The muscles of the back and the press should always be in tension. Helping yourself with your back by throwing dumbbells is not necessary. Such cheating is used when the athlete needs to achieve complete muscle fatigue, that is, to work to failure. Novice athletes need to take lightweight dumbbells, which would contribute to the proper technique and safety. Rest between sets should not exceed two minutes. The number of repetitions is from 10 to 15 times, since the weight of the dumbbells is small.
Alternative Exercise Options
There are several options for performing such an exercise as standing arms with dumbbells. For instance:
1. Breaking hands in blocks. In this embodiment, the dumbbells are replaced by handles attached by cables to the lower blocks. Exercise is performed in the same way as breeding standing dumbbells. The weight is determined in blocks, but, again, it should be small. Before starting the exercise, the cables with handles are interchanged, that is, the right handle in the left hand, and the left handle in the right. The cables will be in a criss-cross position. This option will allow you to keep the average deltas energized all the time, because when working with dumbbells at the end of the approach, the athlete involuntarily relaxes his hands and gives them a break for a split second, which reduces the effectiveness of the exercise.
2. Breaking dumbbells to the side while standing alternately. In this embodiment, raising and lowering the dumbbell is done first with one hand, and then with the other. That is, first you need to do the right number of repetitions on the right hand, and then the same number of repetitions, but on the left hand. The technique is the same as in the main exercise. Only here, with your free hand, you need to hold on to some kind of emphasis so as not to overstrain and not to allow the dumbbell to be pulled in the last repetitions due to the movement of the body. The rest between the approaches here should not be more than one minute, since while one hand is working, the other is resting, therefore, you need to rest less.
3. Breeding dumbbells standing with emphasis in the back. This type of exercise in the technique of its execution repeats all the requirements of classical dilutions of dumbbells while standing, under the one condition that during its execution you need to rest against some kind of support with your back. In this embodiment, any unnecessary movements and cheating are excluded, as well as the possibility of injury. And, as a result, you need to pick up less weight.
4. Breeding hands with dumbbells sitting. This version of the exercise removes the entire load from the lower back, and also interferes at the end of the approaches, when the strength of the trained muscle is running out, helping yourself with your back, throwing dumbbells. The technique of execution repeats the technique of classical dilutions of dumbbells to the side while standing.
The muscles that are included in the exercise
When breeding dumbbells while standing (photos for an example are presented in the article) or alternative exercises, the following muscle groups are included in the work:
- deltoid muscles (highlighted in green);
- supraspinatus muscles (highlighted in red);
- trapezoid (highlighted in pink);
- anterior dentate muscle (highlighted in yellow).