Do You Need Front Raises?

If your front deltoids are a weak point and you’d like to train them with more volume, a front raise is fine to include in your workouts. But for most people, the front deltoids will be trained sufficiently with your upper body push exercises. Especially if we look into shoulder press and incline chest press variations, we see that the front deltoids are quite dominant during many push exercises.

With other movements like a chest fly and dips, your front deltoids also get a good amount of stimulation. Not to mention that our everyday lives tend to be quite “front-dominant”. It is common for people to develop a rounded forward posture because of having overpowered muscles on the front side of the upper body.

For all these reasons, I find that most people don’t need front raises to have well-developed front deltoids. The push exercises in your workouts will cover the front delts and you can focus more on the side and rear deltoids with the shoulder isolation exercises you do. But again, eventually, it depends on your individual training goals whether front deltoids are useful in your training or not.