maratoolLateral Dumbbell Raises
How to do the lateral dumbbell raises
- Grasp a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing inward towards your body and the dumbbells at your sides.
- Standing with your feet shoulder with apart, draw your abs in and bend your knees slightly.
- While keeping your torso still, raise the your arms up to the sides keeping your arms straight with a slight bend in the elbows.
- Raise your arms up until in line with your shoulders, your palms should face the floor.
- Hold the position for a moment then in a controlled movement lower your arms to the starting position.
- Repeat
Muscles worked
The prime movers are the deltoids, which raise and rotate the upper arm at the shoulder joint.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the forearms hold the grip, which is often what gives out first.
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.
Every exercise using:Dumbbell
These train the shoulders too, using equipment this one does not:
- Lateral Raise - With Bandsband
- Leverage Shoulder Pressmachine
- Low Pulley Row To Neckcable
- Medicine Ball Scoop Throwmedicine ball
- Narrow Parallel Grip Chin-upsbarbell + body only
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.