Reverse Flye
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How's your posture right now? If you're like most people, it's probably not too great. Many people sit all day, and hunch over to look at your phone, tablet, or even book. In any case, the reverse flye, also called a rear delt flye, can be a great exercise to counteract all that hunching, improve your posture, and even get you bigger, broader shoulders.
The Basics
The reverse flye is an upper body pulling exercise. More specifically, it is an isolation exercise that emphasizes the rear delts and upper back musculature.
The Basics
The reverse flye is primarily used as a strength exercise. It is more generally classified as a upper pull movement. Since it specifically targets one muscle group, it is considered an isolation exercise.
Form
Set Up
- Stand up tall and engage your core
- Hinge forward at the hips so that your torso is between a 45 and 90 degree angle
- Keep your chest up
- Let your arms hang straight down with slight bend in your elbows
The Flye
- Keeping your arms straight, lift them up and out to the side
- Focus on squeezing your shoulderblades together and activating your rear delts
- Lift your arms until they're about parallel to the ground
- Lower them under control
Common Mistakes
Lifting Too High
Only lift your arms until they're about parallel to the ground. Going any higher puts undue stress on your shoulder and can lead to injury.
Going Too Heavy
Reverse flyes are best done with light to moderate weights for higher reps. Using too much weight can lead to poor form and using momentum, rather than your delts and upper back, to lift the weight.
Using Momentum
Don't allow the weights to swing at bottom and don't use your legs or torso to help cheat the weight up. This takes away from the focus of the exercise which is to work the rear delts and upper back muscles.
Additional Info
Posture and Balance
Much of what people do in their daily lives as well as in the gym creates imbalances. Sitting with poor posture all day stretches the upper back musculature and reduces their activation. Combine that with the amount of upper body pushing exercises that many gym goers do can lead to shoulder and back issues. While other pulling exercises help balance this out, the reverse flye is particularly suited because of how it isolates and activates the upper back musculature.
Minimal and Versatile
The reverse flye can be done a lot of different ways and with several different types of resistance. It's commonly done with dumbbells or resistance bands. It doesn't require much weight to be effective, and can be performed even with the most minimal of home gym set ups.
