Even though people often do bench presses and dumbbell flies for their shoulders, these moves barely work the middle part of the shoulder muscle — at least in guys who lift regularly.

If you're a guy who lifts weights, doing bench presses or dumbbell flys probably won't do much to work your side and back shoulder muscles — they barely turn on during these moves, even though lots of people do them for upper body strength.

If you're trying to build your shoulder muscles, especially the middle part, doing lateral raises or shoulder presses works way better than bench presses or dumbbell flies — they activate the muscle much more.

If you're a guy who lifts weights, doing lateral raises or shoulder presses works your middle shoulder muscle way better than bench presses or dumbbell flies — and both moves are about equally good for it.

If you're doing shoulder presses, your rear shoulder muscles are working a lot more than if you're doing bench presses or dumbbell flies — like over three times more, according to this claim.

If you're a guy who lifts weights, doing shoulder presses works your front shoulder muscles way more than bench presses, flys, or lateral raises. It's one of the best moves to really fire up those front shoulders.