Exercise Tutorial: Lateral Raises

Table of Contents

What Are Lateral Raises

The Lateral Raise, also commonly referred to as Side Raises or Dumbbell Lateral Raises, are a great upper body exercise that allows you to gain strength and size in their shoulders as well as work on shoulder definition. . For those looking to gain the aesthetically pleasing, broad and defined shoulders, this is the exercise for you.

Lateral Raises Exercise Video Tutorial

How to Do Lateral Raises

1. Begin by standing in a comfortable stance, with feet about hip width part, with a slight bend in the knee while holding light dumbbells at your sides with palms facing towards you

2. Pull your shoulders down and back and engage your core.

3. Raise your arms up straight out to your sides until they reach up to shoulder level

4. In a slow and controlled manner, lower the weights back down to your sides

5. Repeat for desired number of repetitions

Lateral Raises Form

Here are some things to keep in mind, when performing Lateral Raises:

• Keep your shoulders down and back. Avoid shrugging of the shoulders

• Maintain a neutral spine. Avoid any rounding of the back.

• Avoid arm swing. When fatigue sets in, it’s common to try to use momentum to try and swing the weights up. Try to avoid this as much as possible to reduce risk of injury.

• Perform the exercise is a controlled manner, not rapidly flailing weights around

Why Are Lateral Raises Useful 

Lateral Raises are useful that targets your shoulders to help improve your strength, power and hypertrophy. This is easily modifiable to best suit your skills, needs and available equipment. For beginners, it can be done with simply bodyweight, a resistance band, cables or light dumbbells. 

Lateral Raises are also useful because not only does it help increase your muscle growth and size but also can assist to improve your control of your range of motion and correct any muscle imbalances and asymmetries you may have.

Lateral Raise Muscles Worked

The primary muscles used during the Lateral Raise are:

• Medial Deltoid

• Trapezius

Secondary muscles include:

• Serratus Anterior

• Supraspinatus

Lateral Raises Variations

Bent Over Lateral Raises

The Bent Over Lateral Raise is a great variation that not only targets your shoulders but your back as well. It is also performed similar to the traditional raise. Simply hinge forward at the hips, maintaining a slight bend in the knee and a flat back. Holding the dumbbells slightly in front of you with palms facing in, raise your arms up to shoulder height in a controlled manner before lowering the weights back down.

Lateral Cable Raises

The Lateral Cable Raises is a great variation to change up your workout. It is similar to the traditional Lateral Raise, we simply just set up next to a cable machine. This exercise will be performed with one arm at a time. Set up next to the cable machine, with the pully set at the lowest level towards the ground. Stand sideways in front of the machine, with the handle in your outside hand, arm resting in front of your waist with your arm extended. And complete the Raise as we normally would, raising arm up to shoulder level before returning it back down. Complete desired reps with this arm before switching sides.

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