The dumbbell lateral raise is one of the cornerstone dumbbell shoulder exercises.
Performing lateral raises with dumbbells can help you isolate your shoulder muscles.
Isolation exercises are a key component to anyone who plans on performing a workout routine that is primarily focused on full body training sessions.
I personally enjoy the dumbbell shoulder raise because it helps me establish a mind-muscle connection with my lateral deltoid. When performed with lighter weight, they can be a great warm up exercise for a shoulder session.
Additionally, if you utilize a higher rep range with this exercise, you can get a pretty solid shoulder muscle pump. For all of you pump chasers out there, you already know why this is a major reason to perform lateral raises.
So, let’s get into all of the details. This article is meant to serve as a complete expert guide for the dumbbell lateral raise. We will discuss how to perform the exercise, what muscles it targets, how to add them into your workout routine, and provide a list of variations you can look into.
How to Perform the Dumbbell Lateral Raise
As mentioned, the dumbbell lateral raise is considered an isolation exercise. It requires a set of dumbbells. And while there are many variations, the primary variation of the exercise requires you to perform it in a standing position.
You will begin by selecting the weight of dumbbells you would like to perform the exercise with. I personally like to stick to lighter weight on this exercise and focus on form as well as mind-muscle connection. We will get more into weight selection in the How to Add Dumbbell Lateral Raises to Your Workout section.
To perform the dumbbell lateral raise:
- Grab the dumbbells you plan to use.
- Stand in an upright position in a shoulder-width apart stance.
- Remain activated throughout the entire body. Ensure you are pressing through all four corners of your feet and bracing your core as you begin the exercise.
- With a focus on pulling the weight with your shoulders, keep you elbows slightly bent and your back in a neutral position.
a. Note: The model in the photo of this article uses a pretty generous elbow bend. Nothing particularly wrong with doing this and it may allow you to utilize heavier weight. It will depend on your goals for this exercise. - Raise the dumbbells laterally until the dumbbells are even with your shoulders.
- Reverse the movement pattern and control the dumbbells as you return to the starting position.
- Repeat for the desired repetitions.
What Muscles Does the Dumbbell Lateral Raise Target?
In simplistic terms, the dumbbell lateral raise targets the muscles of the shoulder.
It will primarily target the lateral head (middle) of the shoulder. However, depending the form you use and body momentum, you may engage the other two deltoid heads as well.
From a stabilization standpoint, you will indirectly target the muscles of your core.
How to Add Dumbbell Lateral Raises to Your Workouts
Now the fun part. There are several ways you can add the dumbbell lateral raise to your workout routine.
While it likely will never be the primary lift of your workouts, you may still begin a workout session with the lateral raise if you are utilizing the exercise as a warm up for your shoulders. In this instance, you will want to use light weight and high reps (a minimum of 15 repetitions for 2 or so sets).
Most will use the exercise as an accessory lift to compliment their workout. Due to this, and the variety of training goals, you may have this exercise second in your workout or as the final exercise you perform.
For instance, if you are performing a full body workout routine, it is highly likely that this exercise will be one of the final exercises you perform during your workout.
If you perform bro-split style workouts, it may be the second exercise that you perform during your shoulder workout.
And if you perform and upper/lower split or push/pull/legs split, it may be placed really anywhere within the routine.
Speaking of push/pull/legs split, there is some controversy as to whether the dumbbell lateral raise should be part of a push workout or a pull workout. I have always worked them into my push workouts. It’s a shoulder exercise, after all. And the muscles of the shoulders are mostly associated with push exercises.
Let’s circle back to our discussion on what weight to use for the exercise. If you are using the exercise as a warm-up, you already know to use lighter weight and higher reps.
If you are using the lateral raise as an accessory lift, you will want to use moderate weight and perform a moderate rep range of 8-15 repetitions.
There are some people out there that will perform this exercise with excessively heavy weight. To each their own. To me, there are better exercises that are suited to moving heavier weights with the shoulder muscles.
Lateral Raise Variations
The dumbbell lateral raise is the primary variation of the exercise. Of course, there are a lot of variations of the lateral raise using all sorts of pieces of equipment. In this section, I will provide a list of some of those variations.
As I write more of these exercise guides, I will be sure to link them. For now, if it is not linked and you want to learn more, leverage YouTube another video platform by searching for the exercise name.
- Seated dumbbell lateral raise
- Cable lateral raise
- Dumbbell lateral raise to front raise
- Resistance band lateral raise
- Leaning lateral raise
- Machine lateral raise
- Landmine lateral raise
Conclusion
That was a lot of lateral raise talk. To sum it all up, the lateral raise exercise is an excellent way to isolate your shoulders. They’re primarily used as a secondary exercise with moderate weight and moderate reps. And, they can be added to any training style depending on your goals.
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