Need your help

[Moen]

Long story short: due to financial reasons I had to change gyms, now in the college gym. Today one of the instructors there came to me and told me that the seated machine presses I was doing do not work the anterior deltoids. According to him they work the lateral head till the arm is parallell and then ONLY triceps and traps till the top of the movement. (due to bad shoulders I aint going past parallel ever and he claimed I was basically training triceps All of the instructors there are physiologists or pshysiotherapists and the guy claimed to have numeral studies supporting his claims.

Now this is where I need some help: some of you have these emg and other studies at hand, anything on seated shoulder presses or anterior deltoid movement is welcome.

Why I bother? The guy acted very arrogant (he's the one who studied it right) even though he's obviously wrong and it is the kind of guy who still be irritating my ass off a year from now. You understand hitting him in the face is not a viable option so I want to crush him with evidence stating he is indeed wrong.

Help me crush this fag guys

[pumpster]

I'm not clear whether you were doing front presses or presses behind the neck. Front presses hit the anterior delts big-time. Military presses emphasize the lateral head far more but still hit the anterior delts somewhat.

The delts might be hit a little more on the first half of the motion, but they're still plenty used in the last half too. Also your friend there probably didn't know or mention that it can actually be better to just stick with doing the last half of the motion, because it's still hitting delts while putting a lot less pressure on the shoulder joints than the first part of the motion. In general, just to avoid shoulder impingement issues it makes more sense to just use the top half or two-thirds of the motion and never go all the way down.

I don't even think this should be an issue, lots of guys don't even do front delt work because it's hit by other exercises.

[wes]

That "trainer" knows two things......jack + shit !

[leonp1981]

Any form of shoulder press will work all 3 heads of the deltoid, but mainly the anterior and lateral.  Varying angles, positions, grips can shift the focus more onto a specific head.

A very basic way to prove this is to put your fingers on the anterior delt while you mimic the movement.  Can you feel the muscle contracting?  Yes, so it is being worked.

As regards your range of motion, I don't bring the bar any lower than eye level, for the same reasons pumpster already mentioned.

Tell this 'trainer' to politely piss off, if he keeps interfering, make a complaint.

[QuakerOats]

like most "trainers" these days the guy probably looks like he doesn't even work out.

[tonymctones]

like most "trainers" these days the guy probably looks like he doesn't even work out.

I was gonna say something along these lines your probably bigger than this dude so the next time he gives you advice look at him and then look at you and say ya you must be right and just walk off.

Either that or tell him to go back and reread those studies.

LOL just for kicks man next time you see him ask what exercises are best to work out the anterior delts, id really like to see what he says.

[tbombz]

if you in decent condition you could just grab a light dumbell an do a standing press and have him look at the contraction in your delts while you do it... then it would be impossible to argue that it doesnt involve front delts.. cuz you would see him see the front delt contracting during the movement..

[Moen]

Great idea tbombz, I always have trouble coming up with the simplest solution lol.
The sad part is that these are actually college educated people, unlike most of the PT's in the stories you hear all over the boards. You would think they SHOULD know

[pumpster]

I'm sure everyone appreciates your thanks for the info, "moen".

[Moen]

I'm sure everyone appreciates your thanks for the info, "moen".

Not sure what you mean by this? (english not mother language!)