Should I be doing flies?

Good question Mike. I don't claim to be an expert, but am smarter than a lot of folks. There is a gentleman by the name of Mark Rippetoe. He looks at training from a very matter of fact, functional point of view. Jaysun and I tend to more or less subscribe to many of his views and theories regarding training. When it comes to exercises like flies, I generally don't consider them very useful or helpful. I know that you tend to train more from a body building perspective, so they may hold some value for you. For me, when I used to do them, I found that more often than not, they just put an unnecessary strain on my shoulders. Nowadays, I have two primary goals in mind for training.

1. Gain Strength as effectively as possible.
2. Be in good overall cardiovascular shape and maintain a high capacity to "do work."

Every minute of my training and every exercise that I do is chosen to better myself at one or both of those goals in the least amount of time as possible. Here is a good article about this. Again, I know that you may have different goals for your training, but that is where I come from. Personally, I wouldn't bother with movements like flies or even shoulder raises. They strain my shoulders and don't really make me stronger. At least in a functional way. For example, if I had to lift something from the ground (or waist high) to my chest or to overhead, I would do it in a way that mimicked a Clean or Clean and Press, etc. I wouldn't lift it with my arms extended straight out. Hopefully that makes sense. I'd definitely be interested to hear other views on this.