Front Delt Workout: 7 Moves to Better Shoulders

Having sexy, defined shoulders is one of the best hallmarks of a developed physique. Front delt workouts are the key to unlocking this part of your body.

For both men and women proportionate shoulders with a good amount of volume to balance out the rest of the body look aesthetic and can enhance most body types.

If you're looking to get a broader frame, or just create some balance in your body, read on to learn more about the front deltoid muscles of the shoulders.

Let's break down some of the anatomical structure, the function, and a few shoulder-building exercises you can do to improve the look of your front deltoids.

What Are the Front Delts?

First off, let’s get up close and personal with the deltoid muscle group. These are a key muscle group to train if you want healthy shoulders. Putting mechanical strain (stress to the muscle) on the deltoids during resistance training is highly recommended for muscular development.

Anterior Deltoids

Your anterior (front) deltoids are the front parts of your shoulder muscles.

They originate at your clavicles (collarbones) and insert near your humerus (your upper arm bone).

What these muscles do is help you to flex and internally rotate your arms. They work alongside your chest muscles to do this. For sports that involve a lot of upward arm movement, like swimming, athletes often have to work a lot with their anterior deltoids.

Along with your lateral deltoids and rear deltoids, the front deltoid muscles help compose the overall build of your shoulder.

Now for a shoulder anatomy fun fact: Did you know that the shoulder joint, also called the glenohumeral joint, is the joint in the body with the highest level of mobility?

In this case, it's even more important to make sure the supporting muscles are strong. Developing your anterior delts will help build functional shoulder strength, alleviate shoulder injuries, and improve your overall health.

Lateral Delt

The lateral deltoids are the side deltoid muscles. They help you raise your arms, you guessed it, to your sides!

Your lateral delts connect to a little bony knob on your shoulder known as the acromion process. When you perform weight lifting moves like lat raises, your lateral deltoids go to work.

Rear Delt

Your back delt rises up and out of your scapula. Its main function is to move your arms outwards and backwards.

What is the Best Workout for Front Deltoid?

Let's take a look at a few moves that you can do to work out your front deltoids.

These can be great alone, in addition to other upper-body training moves, or as part of a circuit.

Front Raise

The front raise is one of the easiest moves you can perform for stronger anterior deltoids. To do a proper front raise grab a pair of dumbbells at a comfortable weight for you.

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart making sure your spine is straight and your abs are engaged. With straight arms, raise your dumbbells up and in front of you until they come to shoulder height. Contract your deltoids during this raising action.

From the top of the movement, lower the arms back down until they reach your thighs, making sure to keep some tension in your move.

Repeat for as many reps as you need. Beginners should aim to try this move for three sets of 10 to 12 reps.

Bench Press

The bench press is one of the best tests of upper body strength. It's not only phenomenal at building a big strong chest, but it can also develop your shoulder muscles as well as your arms.

Although proper bench pressing can require a little bit of technique, it's something you should incorporate into your workout toolkit. The bench press is one of the best ways to work towards muscular hypertrophy and to get stronger quickly.

To bench press, set yourself up at a flat weight bench underneath a barbell. Most commercial gyms have bench pressing stations with barbells in the correct position and plates for loading.

Position your body underneath the barbell. With an overhand grip, grab the barbell at a comfortable with. Depending on your arm length you may need to use a wider or narrower grip here.

Plant your feet firmly on the floor with your knees pointed slightly outwards and your legs wide.

To unrack your barbell, press your back into the weight bench and engage your abdominals, exhaling to firmly press the barbell up over the center of your chest.

Bend at the elbows to lower your weight towards the middle of your chest. Your barbell should form an arc in the air as it comes down to hit the chest.

Your weight may lightly graze your chest but you shouldn't be letting go of the effort. From the bottom of the move, use your arm strength and contract, exhaling to push your weight back up.

Repeat this move for as many reps as needed. if you are going for a personal best, a one-rep max or a five-to-six-rep max with heavy weights, it’s a good idea to have a spotter by your side.

Overhead Press

The overhead press is one of the simplest moves for building defined shoulders. It targets both the anterior (aka front) and lateral deltoids.

To perform an overhead press, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Grab a barbell and, using an overhand grip, bend your knees, grab it with a shoulder-width, overhand grip and bring it up, flipping your wrists midway to let it rest across your clavicles.

From here, engage your core and use your shoulder strength to drive the barbell up overhead. Straighten your arms at the top of this movement. Hold for a beat, then slowly bend your elbows to bring your barbell back down to the collarbones.

Repeat this move for as many reps as you need.

If you want a slightly different variation of this move, try the military press. this movement mimics the same pattern as the overhead press, however, instead of shoulder-width feet, you keep your feet firmly together at the base.

The military press draws less on your core engagement and more directly on movement right from the shoulders.

Dumbbell Press

For another variation on the overhead press, you can choose to swap out your barbell, for a pair of dumbbells.

Arnold Press

Named for the man, the myth, The legend himself, the Arnold Press is an Arnold Schwarzenegger namesake.

Arnold presses are unique when compared to other types of shoulder presses since they engage all parts of your deltoid

To hit your front, back, and lateral delts, you can perform an Arnold press, either seated or standing up.

To do an Arnold press, hold two dumbbells and curl your arms towards you like in a bicep curl. From this position, externally rotate your wrists and push the arms straight overhead.

Your grip should rotate to the complete opposite direction from bottom to top of this movement. Be careful not to let your elbows flare too wide when you're pressing your weight upwards.

The Arnold press is a great comprehensive move for tying shoulder work and chest work together.

This is a great way to get strong and build an aesthetic physique (well, duh, it’s named for a dude with one of the most legendary bodies of all time).

Pike Push-Up

Are you looking for a bodyweight-only move to build your shoulders? The pike push-up is one of the best no-weight front delt workouts that you can perform to build up your deltoids.

To do this move, plant your hands next to each other on the ground about shoulder-width apart.

Keep your feet about the same distance apart. Think of the downward dog yoga position.

With your hands turned in so that your fingertips face one another, slowly bend your elbows to descend into a push-up with your hips hiked into the air.

From the bottom of the move push through your palms to drive your body back up to the starting position, keeping your butt in the air the whole time.

Using your body weight here, you should feel a strong engagement through your shoulders.

If this is too much for you, or if you are suffering from shoulder injuries, you can always try the pike push-up with elevated legs.

Instead of keeping your feet planted on the floor, simply use a weight bench to elevate the feet to take some effort out of this movement.

Around the World

When done with weights, these moves can help you build bigger, more defined shoulders.

Along with your pecs, biceps, and triceps, the deltoids are front and center in the around the world.

Although your lateral and rear deltoids help to stabilize this move, the main deltoid at work here is the anterior deltoid.

To perform an around the world, grip a pair of dumbbells with an underhand grip bringing them to your sides.

Start to raise both arms to the sides of your body simultaneously, continuing to arc them around until they reach all the way overhead.

Bring the dumbbells together to just touch at the top and then bring the arms back down, following the same movement pattern. Think about mimicking the movement pattern of a snow angel here. Spread your wings and allow this move to let your deltoids take off and fly!

Overtraining the Front Delts

Did you know that a lot of people are front delt-dominant in their shoulder training?

Although you may be reading this in hopes of strengthening or growing your front deltoids, many of us already get in enough front delt workout moves.

You might be thinking "stronger is always better.” However, too much strength in one area with imbalanced or weak muscles elsewhere creates an uneven distribution of strength

If you're strong in one spot but weak in others, not only will your body feel imbalanced or off, you may notice that your proportions are not as symmetrical as you'd like them to be. If you want to look good or build an aesthetically pleasing body with proportions that would put the Greek gods to shame, balance is key.

Overtraining your front deltoids can also cause them to become extra tight if you don't take the time to recover properly.

If you don't employ muscular recovery techniques like, for example, ice baths, foam rolling, muscular scraping, or stretching the muscles, your muscles can really tense up.

If your front deltoids are trained more than your back or side delts, they may cause you to hunch forward and lose your posture.

Poor posture especially over time is one of the leading causes of back pain.

Most people struggle with some degree of lower back pain. but although it is common that doesn't mean you have to suffer through it. Training your delts evenly and also focusing on moves like deadlifts that work the core and back are surefire ways to keep your posture healthy and your back pain-free!

Should I Isolate the Front Delts?

Although it may be helpful to throw in one or two front delt isolation moves, like front raises, in an upper body workout, most compound lifts that focus on your shoulders or upper body will target the front delts regardless.

Unless it's an area that for some reason you are struggling to grow, it doesn't benefit most of us to work out with an anterior delt focus.

Instead, think about working on moves that rope in multiple muscle groups. Exercises like the push-up, bench press, overhead press, and tricep dip are mainstays in experienced lifters’ workouts for a reason.

These moves work the front delts but also hit the other deltoid muscles, as well as engaging the arms and chest.

For most gymgoers, it's more beneficial to focus on working these muscles in balance. Try to pick moves that work the upper body muscles together.

If you are new to the gym, a push-pull-legs split can be a great way to get simple and effective workouts. No front delt isolation is needed. That way, you work these shoulder muscles, get an even top-half burn, and create a simple and repeatable workout pattern that you can stay consistent with during your week.

Big Picture

Your anterior deltoids are one of the most important muscles to build to create strong shoulders.

The deltoids greatly enhance your appearance while helping your posture and upper body strength. Sounds like a no-brainer that you’d want to optimize your training here!

For both men and women having broad shoulders compared to a narrower waist creates a tapered physique.

For women, on top of a rounded booty, this can help imitate an hourglass shape. And for men, they enhance your V-lines, and lean and mean torso to make you more aesthetic. You’ll look so good you won’t be able to wait to show off in your next gym selfie.

Raise your delts and your workout standards. Flex offers an all-in-one workout platform to help do just that.

You can learn new exercises, visualize your fitness journey, and keep all your PRs in one place, with tracking integrations to hit your daily caloric intake for growth, maintenance, or weight loss.

Get simple customized fitness plans or introduce a little friendly competition to your fitness community by sharing exercises with your friends. Try it for free through the Flex fitness app.

References

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Chang LR, Anand P, Varacallo M. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Glenohumeral Joint. [Updated 2023 Aug 8]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537018/

Elzanie A, Varacallo M. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Deltoid Muscle. [Updated 2023 May 8]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537056/

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