Strengthen Your Deltoids with the Dumbbell Scaption
Table of Contents
What Is the Dumbbell Scaption
The dumbbell scaption is an isolation exercise that strengthens the Deltoids and upward rotators of the scapula. It’s also known as the dumbbell scaption raise.
How to Do a Dumbbell Scaption
Begin with a shoulder-width stance and the dumbbells at your side with your thumbs and biceps facing out.
Raise the dumbbells out with straight arms laterally at a 45-degree angle. Keep the thumbs facing up and lift come out in an arc.
Allow the scapula to move freely to ensure proper scapular rotation.
Once the Dumbbells reach 90-degrees or level with your shoulder, lower the dumbbells back at your side and repeat for the amount of desired reps.
Dumbbell Scaption Muscles Worked
The muscles worked during the dumbbell scaption are the muscles that perform the upward rotation of the scapular and shoulder abduction.
Why Is the Dumbbell Scaption Useful
The Dumbell Scaption is excellent for strengthening the shoulder muscles while reducing stress on the subacromial space. Since the shoulders are in external rotation and moves within the scapular plane. The humerus frees up extra space while the scapula provides strong mechanical support. The combination of the two reduces the risk of shoulder impingement while effectively strengthening the shoulder muscles.
Benefits of the Dumbbell Scaption
The Dumbbell Scaption is a great way to help grow and strengthen your deltoid muscles safely. Strong deltoids are essential if you want to have healthy shoulders and strong overhead movements. A well-developed deltoid also plays a considerable role in aesthetics as it provides that illustrious V-taper or superhero physique.
Since the Dumbbell Scaption is an isolation exercise, it isn't taxing on our body to perform. Low-taxing exercise allows us to add more training volume in our routine without a significant risk overtraining. So if you have weak shoulders and want to stimulate hypertrophy further, you can add in the dumbbell scaption after a heavy compound exercise like an overhead press and not worry about an overuse injury.
Dumbbell scaption doesn't require a lot of weight to be effective either since we're isolating the shoulders and were placing them at a mechanical disadvantage. We won't need to hunt down the heavy dumbbells to get a great shoulder workout in.
Dumbbell Scaption Variations
The purpose of Dumbbell Scaption variations is to help provide either a new training stimulus for hypertrophy or focus on a specific training goal. Such as improving balance or isolating one side of our body. Variations are essential since they provide us with the ability to stimulate all our muscle fibres thoroughly and prevent training plateaus.
Since the Dumbbell Scaption is an isolation exercise progressively overloading by adding more weight becomes very challenging as the strength gain is much steeper than that of a compound exercise. Using variations is a useful alternative for progressive overload.
Single Leg Dumbbell Scaption
A single-leg dumbbell scaption is the dumbbell scaption performed only on one leg at a time. Removing a base of support makes the exercise much more challenging for your balance while you complete your raises. Be aware you won't be as strong on one leg during your raises; expect to lift much less weight.
Single Arm Dumbbell Scaption
A single-Arm dumbbell Scaption is a dumbbell scaption performed only one arm at a time. Since there's weight only on one side of our body, our lateral core muscles like our external obliques and Quadratus Lumborum have to work harder to keep us stable. The single-arm variation also allows you to strengthen a weaker side to prevent muscular imbalances.
Ball Dumbbell Scaption
Ball dumbbell scaption is a dumbbell scaption done laying over an exercise ball. Being in a prone position shift the load towards the lower trapezius and posterior deltoids, turning this shoulder excise into an upper back exercise. If you want to focus on strengthening the lower trapezius, the ball Dumbbell Scaption is for you.
Dumbbell Scapation Alternatives
Constant Tension Dumbbell Scaption
The Constant tension dumbbell scaption is the same as your regular dumbbell scaption, but you don't allow the shoulders ever fully to relax, stopping 2-3 inches or 15 degrees away from your sides. The supraspinatus controls the first 15 degrees of abduction after that the deltoids do the majority of the work. So by maintaining constant tension, the Deltoids will be doing most of the work by limiting the supraspinatus involvement.
