Written by Tyler DiGiovanni | BSBM
Fact checked by Sam Coleman, Co-Founder
FACT CHECKED
Despite what the name sounds like, horizontal abduction has nothing to do with laying down to do crunches or other abdominal work. You almost certainly use it every day, whether you realize it or not. If you open an upper cabinet, flare your elbows out to pull open a stubborn bag of chips, or for the more athletic types, wind up for a big return hit in tennis. Still not getting it? Don’t worry, we’ll go more into depth on what muscles are used, the benefits of developing your horizontal abduction muscles, our favorite exercises to hit horizontal abduction, and how to incorporate those exercises.
What is Horizontal Abduction?
Here’s a little less complicated way to think of it. Put your arms out in front of you like you’re doing a Frankenstein’s monster impression, now bring your arms out like you’re doing a “T” pose. That’s horizontal abduction.
Muscles Involved In Horizontal Abduction
The primary movers in horizontal abduction are the posterior aka rear delts. This often overlooked and underworked muscle works in tandem with the middle and lower trapezius, rhomboids, infraspinatus, teres minor, middle deltoid, supraspinatus, and upper trapezius to bring your arms from the front of your body away from your midline. Let’s take a look at a breakdown of what each muscle does during horizontal abduction.
- Rear Deltoid: The primary mover in horizontal abduction. These smaller muscles are located on the back of your shoulders.
- Middle and Lower Trapezius: These parts of your traps act as stabilizers with your scapula (shoulder blade) during abduction.
- Rhomboids: These aptly named muscles also help stabilize the scapula during horizontal abduction.
- Infraspinatus: Part of the rotator cuff, this muscle helps rotate the arm outward and assists in horizontal abduction.
- Teres Minor: Another rotator cuff muscle, the teres minor, works with the infraspinatus to externally rotate the arm and assist in abduction.
- Middle Deltoid: This muscle helps keep the arm elevated during horizontal abduction.
- Supraspinatus: This rotator cuff muscle also helps keep the arm elevated during horizontal abduction.
- Upper Trapezius: The top of your traps helps hold the scapula up.
As you can see, it takes a lot of muscle coordination to perform movements like opening a car door or reaching for something behind you.
Benefits of Horizontal Abduction Training
Incorporating horizontal abduction into your routine offers several key benefits:
Improved Shoulder Health
Strengthening the posterior deltoids and rotator cuff muscles helps stabilize the shoulder joint, reducing the risk of injuries such as rotator cuff tears. If you talk to anyone who has had a rotator cuff injury, they’ll tell you how debilitating it can be. Being able to perform overhead lifts is a luxury you don’t realize you have until you can’t do it anymore.
Improved Posture
Since the majority of us spend our day at a computer screen, or looking down at a phone, it’s easy for our posture to suffer. Horizontal abduction exercises can help bring your shoulders back, avoiding the dreaded rounded look. Besides the visual improvement, better posture means reduced upper back and neck strain.
Balanced Muscle Development
Complete muscular development is incredibly important for training all parts of the shoulder. When you’re doing an overhead press, yes the front delts are taking the brunt of the work, but your rear delts are also putting in work to help stabilize the weight. From a visual point of view, underdeveloped rear delts can give the illusion of hunched forward shoulders, especially if the front and side delts are well trained. From the back, a pair of well developed rear delts can give your shoulders a wide 3D look to them.
Our Favorite Exercises for Horizontal Shoulder Abduction
Here are some of the best exercises to target this movement:
1. Reverse Flyes
Muscles Targeted: Posterior deltoids, rhomboids, trapezius.
2. Cable Face Pulls
Muscles Targeted: Posterior deltoids, rhomboids, trapezius, rotator cuff muscles.
3. Band Pull-Aparts
Muscles Targeted: Posterior deltoids, infraspinatus, teres minor, rhomboids.
4. Bent Over One-Arm Rear Delt Cable Fly
Muscles Targeted: Posterior deltoids, rhomboids, trapezius.
Incorporating Horizontal Abduction into Your Routine
We’ve already talked about why you should be doing horizontal abduction exercises, now here’s how to work them into your regimen:
Warm-Up
Perhaps the most important step, making sure your shoulders are warmed up is going to help prevent injuries and prime your muscles for a great workout. Use lightweight for band pull aparts, cable external and internal rotation, and any other movement you use to get your shoulders loosened up. If you are still clueless on how to get your shoulders warmed up, you can watch this video for some guidance.
Tips for training
We know there are countless ways to structure a workout regimen, but not matter what style of workout split you use: bodybuilding, PPL, Full Body, the advice is going to stay the same.
Include 2 to 3 sets of your chosen exercise at the end of your workout, post compound lifts. For the most part, these are small stabilizer muscles, and will be fatigued (especially after pulling movements), so they won’t need a ton of direct work to be properly trained.
Make sure you leave at 48 hours in between sessions of training them to allow for sufficient recovery.
FAQs
What is horizontal shoulder abduction movement?
For a direct quote from NIH, shoulder abduction is, “the movement of the humerus in a horizontal or transverse plane away from the chest.”¹ In case you didn’t know, the humerus is the bone between your shoulder and elbow. Stick your arm out in front of you, now move it outward, and that’s horizontal abduction.
What is horizontal shoulder adduction?
If you guessed that it’s the opposite of abduction, you’d be right. It’s the motion of bringing your humerus in a horizontal plane toward the chest. That could include motions like hitting a forehand tennis shot, chest flyes, or throwing a ball.
What muscles horizontally abduct the shoulders?
To summerize:
- Rear delt
- Trapezius
- Rhomboids
- Infraspinatus
- Supraspinatus
- Teres Minor
Wrap-Up
Horizontal abduction is the unsung hero of a balanced upper body. It supports shoulder health, athletic performance, and daily functional activities. Now that you know what muscles are involved and how to incorporate these movements into workouts, you can help avoid injury and develop an under appreciated part of your body.
Whether you’re an athlete looking to increase performance, or just someone that wants to correct posture and prevent shoulder pain, horizontal abduction exercises should be a mainstay in your workout regimen.
References:
Miniato, Mohammed A., et al. “Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Shoulder.” PubMed, StatPearls Publishing, 2023, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK536933/#:~:text=Horizontal%20abduction%20(transverse%20extension)%3A
Tyler DiGiovanni
Author