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Lateral Raise Side Arm

LATERAL RAISE — SIDE ARM

Taken from Dave Draper's book, Brother Iron, Sister Steel

This ever-popular, single-joint dumbbell movement isolates the outer head of the deltoid; it shapes and completes that which presses begin. You won’t see a lot of powerlifters practicing the lateral raise, but it’s not because it doesn’t add muscle. The best way to learn the exercise is to start very light with a pair of chrome dumbbells (or those little blue ones work well) hanging by your side, slightly to the rear of your body, palms facing inward. With arms rigid, raise them outwardly to a position slightly above parallel or just above your shoulders, palms remaining down. Repeat the movement for a set of ten repetitions and notice how cleverly we modify the action to reach our goal as we fatigue, a teeny lean forward, an imperceptible bending and shortening of the arms, a mini-thrust and a crossing of the eyes. Fact is, you’re on your way to the perfect side arm lateral raise to give your delts the cannonball look of your dreams.

Don’t stop now. Work up the rack, eventually, and improve your form and thrust with tight contractions at the top and negatives that rake striations across the shoulders and traps. Who said these isolated, simple movements are simple and isolated? Get rolling on these creature-makers and you have grip work, lower, middle and upper back jamming in concert, heavy breathing, and some random parts of the outer biceps burning. Here’s a novel idea: superset side arms with seated press-behind-neck. Original.

Wicked Willie here, many find laterals difficult to perform properly and even more difficult to progress in weight. Following is a response to a similar question that was asked on the Iron Online forum:

Lateral Raises

This is just a guess but I assume you're raising your 'bells pretty much straight to the side? If so, that position doesn't lend itself very well to weight increase and heavy weight. Try this little modification in body positoning and see if it breaks you loose from your plateau.

Lean forward slightly, with flexed knees and somewhat rounded back. Start with the 'bells in front of your body and touching...not at your sides. When raising the 'bells, your hands and arms should not be at your sides but at roughly 10 o' clock and 2 o' clock. Don't worry about turning the pinkie up...just try to keep the hand as parallel to the floor as possible. Lean more or less to direct the focus to the lateral head. (Also...it is IMPORTANT that you keep the elbow just slightly bent or unlocked, to minimize the stress on the elbow joint. Let comfort be your guide as to the correct amount of bend.)

You can do the same movement with one hand, while holding an upright with the other. It may give you a slightly more stable base from which to apply power...but remember, laterals are NOT a power movement, they are a leverage movement.

Occasionally (once a month or so) after your regular strict laterals...take "bells that are 10-20 lbs. heavier and try to do laterals with them. This will obviously be impossible and will be a partial movement. It DOES stress the delts with heavier weight and helps to overcome sticking points. Easy does it, though...it won't take a whole lot to see and feel a difference. You can also press slightly heavier 'bells overhead and then resist lowering them in a lateral raise movement...this is an old Vince Gironda trick.

While Vince Gironda is being mentioned, I want to add that I disagree strongly with his practice of keeping the pinkie higher than the thumb when doing lateral raises. Although this is effective at directing the effort to the lateral head, it is also effective in creating "impingement syndrome" over time. By adopting the one handed position that I've described above and by playing with the positioning of the arm during the movement, it will be possible to direct the effort to the lateral/rear head of the deltoid cap and keep the handle of the dumbbell level in a more natural position. Start with the arm at either 10 or 2 o clock position, (depending upon which arm you're using) and modify (i.e. 9:30 or 11) till you find the position that most strongly activates the lateral head while keeping the dumbbell level. Safer for your shoulders over time.