By RealJock Staff

This exercise provided courtesy of Mike Clausen, founder and co-owner of DIAKADI Body training gym, voted best personal training gym in San Francisco by CitySearch in 2006.

Benefits
Combine exercises to target more of the muscles of the shoulder complex—in this case, the front and middle deltoid muscles.

Muscles Worked
Shoulders (front/middle deltoids)

Starting Position
Stand on the floor with your feet shoulder-width apart, holding dumbbells at your sides with your arms extended downward. Your knees should be slightly bent, and your palms should face in toward your hips (see Photo 1).

Exercise

1. From the starting position, lift both arms out to the side from the shoulder, keeping your elbows straight as you do so. Though you are lifting from the shoulders, you don’t want to raise your shoulders toward your ears; think instead of feeling your hands rising away from your sides (see Photo 2).
2. Continue to raise your arms until the extend straight out to the sides at shoulder level, with your palms facing the floor (see Photo 3).
3. From the extended position, bring both arms forward until they extend straight in front of you, still with palms facing down. Throughout this motion, your elbows should stay straight and your arms parallel to the floor; don’t let them droop, or climb toward the ceiling (see Photo 4).
4. Hold the forward extended position for one full second, then reverse your arms back to the side extended position, and from there reverse again down to the starting position. At no point in this sequence should you bend your elbows.

About Mike Clausen: Clausen is the founder and co-owner of DIAKADI Body training gym, voted best personal training gym in San Francisco by CitySearch in 2006. He has been actively involved in sports and weightlifting since high school, and continues to use that knowledge when training his clients. Clausen is both A.C.E. and N.A.S.M. certified and has been training clients professionally for six years. He enjoys making his clients stronger, both physically and mentally, giving them the tools to create an efficient body and to do things they thought were not possible.

MSUBioNerd wrote:

The text description and the video do not match for this exercise. The text specifies that you are to keep you palms facing down the entire time, raise your arms out to the side, and then bring them around to the front while at shoulder level. The video shows the model raise his arms to the side, bring then down along his torso, and then raise them to the front with the palms facing inward. Essentially, the model is showing an alternating side lateral raise and front shoulder raise.

Oct 02 5:52 AM