Dumbbell lateral raise
Also called lateral raise, side lateral raise, dumbbell side raise, shoulder lateral raise.
What is a dumbbell lateral raise?
A dumbbell lateral raise is shoulder abduction with a dumbbell: arms at your sides, you lift them out sideways to about shoulder height. It trains the lateral head of the deltoid, the part of the shoulder muscle that raises the arm out to the side, with help from the rotator cuff and the muscles that steady the shoulder blade. Several things about it are preference rather than technique: both arms together or one at a time, seated or standing, and how far you rotate the hand.
How do you perform a dumbbell lateral raise?
Set up
- Stand with a dumbbell in each hand, arms hanging at your sides, palms facing your thighs.
- Set your feet about hip width apart, brace lightly and lean the torso forward a touch from the hips, knees soft. Hold that lean for the whole set; it does not move.
- Put a small bend in each elbow, about 10 to 20 degrees, and keep that angle for the whole set.
- Start with the dumbbells an inch or two clear of your thighs rather than resting against them.
- Pick the weight for the top of the movement, not the bottom. The rep is hardest with the arm out horizontal.
Execution
- Lead with the elbow, so it stays level with or slightly above the hand the whole way up.
- Raise the upper arms out to the sides so the elbows finish in line with the shoulders. The hands can sit a little forward of that line; the elbows do not.
- Keep your shoulders down as the arms come up; do not shrug the weight higher.
- Stop when your upper arm is about level with your shoulder.
- Lower more slowly than you lifted, all the way back to where you started.
- Raise both arms together, or one at a time if you prefer.
Common mistakes
Loading it heavy enough that the torso has to help
The top of the rep, arm out and horizontal, is the longest lever this movement puts on the shoulder, and it is the position the exercise exists for. Swinging the torso throws the weight through exactly the range you added the weight for, so you end up with a heavier dumbbell and a lighter set. The slight lean you set at the start is not the problem; it stays where you put it. If your hips are moving, the number in your log is measuring your hips.
Shrugging as the dumbbells come up
The upper trapezius elevates and upwardly rotates the shoulder blade, so a shrug genuinely does raise the arm — just not by abducting the shoulder. The dumbbell reaches the same height with the lateral deltoid doing less of the work, which is the opposite of the trade you wanted.
Letting the elbows bend further as the set gets hard
Bending the elbow shortens the distance between the shoulder and the weight, which makes the same dumbbell easier to lift. The reps look identical from the outside and the set is quietly getting lighter as it goes, so the log records progress that did not happen.
Drifting the upper arms forward as fatigue sets in
Raising in front of the body turns it into a front raise, and the anterior deltoid is a shoulder flexor that pressing already works. In our own data the movements that most often share a session with a lateral raise are presses and triceps work, so a drifting plane sends the work to the part of the shoulder that has had the most of it already.
Chasing extra height above the shoulder for a bigger squeeze
The lateral deltoid's documented range ends at around 100 degrees, only a little above level, and past that more and more of the height comes from the shoulder blade rotating upward. You have added trapezius and serratus work to a set you were doing for your side delts.
Where it fits in a session
After the pressing on an upper-body or push day, alongside the other shoulder and triceps accessory work.
This is isolation work for a small muscle with light absolute loads, so it is cheap to recover from and can be repeated more than once a week without much cost. Higher reps suit it — somewhere in the 10 to 20 range — partly because form holds up better there and partly because the smallest dumbbell jump available is a large percentage step on a weight this light. Progress it by adding reps and cleaning up the descent for several sessions before you touch the next dumbbell up. Keep it light and strict: the load should stay low enough that the shoulders lift it, not a swing.
Muscles worked
- lateral deltoid
- supraspinatus
- anterior deltoid
- posterior deltoid
- upper trapezius
- serratus anterior
Ranked, unlike some records here, because the anatomy supports ranking. The deltoid has three parts, and it is the lateral one that raises the arm out to the side. Its documented range runs from about 15 degrees to about 100, which covers most of a lateral raise but not all of it: the bottom of the rep sits below where it takes over, and a rep to shoulder height stops a little short of the top. The anterior and posterior parts are not idle — they stabilise the arm while it is being abducted — but they are not what is doing the lifting, so they sit under secondary.
The supraspinatus is listed second rather than left out because it starts the movement: the deltoid cannot initiate abduction at all, and the supraspinatus owns the first stretch of it. Our references put the handover at about 15 degrees, though one of them has the supraspinatus working up to about 30, so read the number as approximate. Either way, the bottom of a lateral raise is not a side delt movement.
The upper trapezius and the serratus anterior are on the list for a different reason again. They do not raise the arm at the shoulder at all; they rotate and fix the scapula so that the muscles running from scapula to arm can work against something solid. Their share grows the higher the arm goes, which is one reason raising past shoulder height adds range without adding much side delt.
What lifters actually do
Roughly seven in ten regular RepCount users have logged a dumbbell lateral raise — widely tried, and then kept in the rotation rather than tried once. What it sits beside says more than either number. The five movements that share a session with it most often are the dumbbell shoulder press, bench press, pushdowns, incline dumbbell press and triceps extensions: every one of them a press or a triceps movement, with nothing from a back or leg day on the list. Lateral raises are a push-day fixture rather than a shoulder-day one. Sessions holding it run to about seven exercises and about three sets of the raise itself, which is accessory-work behaviour and not the profile of something anyone builds a workout around.
Most often trained alongside
Share of dumbbell lateral raise sessions that also include each exercise.
- Dumbbell shoulder press30.7%
- Bench press25%
- Pushdowns22%
- Incline dumbbell press21.9%
- Triceps extensions16.7%
Figures come from workouts tracked in RepCount.
Variations
- Cable lateral raise — Cable keeps the load closer to constant through the range; a dumbbell is near weightless at the bottom and hardest at the top.
- Machine lateral raise — Pads fix the arm path, so the plane cannot drift forward as you tire.
- Seated dumbbell lateral raise — Removes the option to drive the weight up with the hips and knees.
- Leaning single-arm lateral raise — Holding a rack and leaning away sideways puts load on the shoulder earlier in the range than the standing version does.
- Lying side lateral raise — Done on your side on a bench or incline; the hardest point of the rep moves lower in the range.
- Behind-the-back cable lateral raise — Cable runs behind the body, which keeps tension on at the bottom, where a dumbbell has almost none.
Frequently asked questions
What muscles does the dumbbell lateral raise work?
Mainly the lateral head of the deltoid, the part of the shoulder muscle that raises the arm out to the side from about 15 degrees to about 100. The supraspinatus, one of the rotator cuff muscles, starts the movement before the deltoid takes over, and the front and rear parts of the deltoid stabilise the arm while it is being raised rather than raising it. The upper trapezius and the serratus anterior rotate and steady the shoulder blade so the shoulder has something solid to work against, and their contribution grows the higher the arm goes.
How high should you raise the dumbbells?
To about shoulder height, so the upper arm finishes roughly level. That is not a safety compromise, it is close to where the muscle's job ends: the lateral deltoid raises the arm to around 100 degrees, a little above level, and beyond that a growing share of the height comes from the shoulder blade rotating upward rather than from the side delt having more to give. Going higher adds work for the trapezius and serratus anterior, not for the side of the shoulder you started the set for.
Why do I feel lateral raises in my traps?
Usually because the shoulder is riding up toward your ear as the arm goes out. The upper trapezius elevates and upwardly rotates the shoulder blade, so shrugging is a genuine way to get the dumbbell to shoulder height — just not by abducting the shoulder. Keep the shoulder down, and if it will not stay down, the dumbbell is too heavy. Some trapezius involvement is normal regardless, because the shoulder blade has to be controlled for the shoulder joint to move properly.
Should you point your thumbs down at the top?
This page takes no position. You will find thumb-down rotation both recommended and discouraged, and we have not put the question to any evidence, so calling either one correct here would be inventing a fact. Treat it as a preference: use the hand position your shoulder is comfortable in through the whole range, and note that any illustration of this movement has to pick one, which is not the same as recommending it.
Should you raise both arms at once or one at a time?
Either. It is a preference, not a technique point. One arm at a time lets you hold onto something for balance and actually watch the working side, which makes it easier to catch a shoulder creeping upward; both arms at once gets the set done in half the time. Seated or standing is the same kind of choice, though seated removes the option of driving the weight up with your legs.
How heavy should lateral raises be?
Lighter than you would guess. The honest test is positional rather than numerical: can you reach shoulder height with the shoulders down, the elbow angle unchanged and the torso still, and have you added reps at that weight over the past few weeks. A dumbbell you can only move by swinging the torso is not measuring your shoulders.
Are lateral raises worth doing?
By what people actually do, yes. Roughly seven in ten regular RepCount users have logged a dumbbell lateral raise at some point, which puts it among the movements people keep coming back to rather than try once. It behaves like accessory work throughout: about three sets, in a session holding about seven exercises, usually alongside pressing.
Can you do lateral raises with a cable or a machine instead?
Yes, and the difference is where in the range the exercise is hard. A dumbbell is close to weightless at the bottom and hardest with the arm horizontal, because gravity acts straight down and the lever is longest there. A cable pulls along its own line the whole way, so tension is more even and there is still load at the bottom. A machine fixes the arm path, which is useful if your plane drifts forward as you fatigue.
Sources
- Elzanie A, Varacallo MA. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Deltoid Muscle. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537056/
- La Rose J, Madrazo-Ibarra A, Varacallo MA. Anatomy, Rotator Cuff. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441844/
- Ourieff J, Scheckel B, Agarwal A. Anatomy, Back, Trapezius. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK518994/
- Lung K, St Lucia K, Lui F. Anatomy, Thorax, Serratus Anterior Muscles. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK531457/
- McCausland C, Sawyer E, Eovaldi BJ, Varacallo MA. Anatomy, Shoulder and Upper Limb, Shoulder Muscles. StatPearls. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534836/