okay welcome everyone to a new episode

of technique Tuesday this week we're

going to be looking at how to perform

the lateral raise with perfect technique

I think that the lateral raise is one of

the if not the most important isolation

exercise out there from a physique

development perspective because first of

all capped lateral delts are going to

create an extreme appearance through

wider shoulders in the illusion of a

smaller waist and second most of the

basic heavy compound exercises just

aren't that effective at targeting the

lateral deltoid

for example this 2013 study found that

the free-weight lateral raise and cable

lateral raise both elicited very high

levels of side delt activation while the

shoulder press and benchpress both had

comparable very minimal activity so in

order to optimize growth of the side

delt in particular I think we probably

should be isolating it but Before we

jump into training technique itself

let's have a quick look at what muscles

we're gonna be targeting with this

movement first so the lateral raise

we're gonna be training primarily

shoulder abduction so raising your arm

out to the side and this will be handled

mainly by the lateral deltoid so unless

you do the lateral raise completely out

to the side there will also be some

degree of shoulder flexion occurring as

the dumbbells come slightly forward

which means the front delts will be

active to a degree and the scapular

upward rotation component will be

handled by the upper traps although as

we'll see we can help take the traps out

of the movement with proper cueing now

before we get in to the basic dumbbell

lateral raise

I just want to say up front that my

personal favorite variation is the

Egyptian cable lateral raise where you

pass the cable between your legs and

lean into the direction of the Rays

leaning away is based on some data from

McMahon Hana tall showing that the

middle deltoid is more important near

the end range of motion whereas the

superspinatus of the rotator cuff is

more involved in near the beginning and

passing the cable between your legs

just allows for a more comfortable

position ready don't need to worry about

the cable hitting your body on the way

up there will also be more consistent

tension with the cable than with the

dumbbell since the dumbbell moves in a

circular resistance path meaning it'll

reach peak tension at the top with

minimal tension at the bottom however it

isn't perfectly clear what the in

locations are of this for hypertrophy so

my best advice would be to just pick a

variation that you like that you can

feel working your delts and just get

better at it over time but because the

dumbbell lateral raise is the most basic

and easily accessible

it's the variation we'll be covering in

detail here now there are also many

other creative ways that you can do the

same basic movement with bands machines

kettlebells and so on and there's

nothing necessarily wrong with

experimenting I am a fan of exercise

creativity but I also think that there's

a limit to how much extra benefit you're

going to get out of making the movement

just more and more convoluted or

ridiculous and since this is a single

joint isolation movement with a long

lever arm and we want to be using

lighter weights and a higher rep zone

something around 10 to 20 or even as

high as 30 reps incense there will come

a point where further load increases

will just result in inevitable form

breakdown at a certain point which is

usually around fifteen to thirty pound

dumbbells rather than focusing on

increasing the weight I think we should

instead focus on progressively

overloading by improving technique

improving the mind muscle connection or

improving the pump one of the immediate

goals with the lateral raise is to

reduce momentum as much as possible

especially while you're still perfecting

proper form and one way to do this is by

performing the movement seated however I

find the bench can sometimes get in the

way as you can also just keep your

glutes flexed throughout the range of

motion which is going to prevent

excessive movement at the hips so you

want to grip the dumbbell with your

index finger up against the head of the

dumbbell with your pinky closer to the

middle of the handle unless you find

that awkward and this is gonna force the

side delts to work harder by increasing

the internal rotation moment at the top

many people find a thumbless grip more

comfortable here but I would say either

a full grip or a false grip both are

fine since the weight is gonna be light

anyway

if you notice a clicking sound in your

shoulder you can try flexing or pulling

your lats in in between reps and based

on my experience this can help reduce it

in many cases you want to make sure that

your shoulder blades are retracted and

then you want to initiate the concentric

by leading out and up with your elbow

rather than lifting the dumbbell

straight out to the side you should

raise the dumbbell in the scapular plane

around fifteen to thirty degrees to the

front when

viewed from the top and throw out the

positive you should think about only

flexing your lateral delt to move the

weight while keeping your forearms and

upper arm soft and there are a few cues

that I personally find helpful for

engaging the lateral head first I often

think about pulling the distal or outer

aspect of the delt toward the medial or

inner aspect throughout the positive I

also think about sweeping the weight out

rather than just lifting the weight up

sweeping out is gonna help get the side

delts more involved over the traps which

get more involved as you sort of shrug

the weight up and once I clear the first

half of the positive I'll slightly

internally rotate by raising my pinky

slightly higher than my thumb which

might shift emphasis away from the front

delt and onto the side delt however

research has suggested that this cue may

present an increased impingement risk so

you'll want to use it at your own

discretion and if you do use it just

make sure that your shoulder blades are

retracted you're lifting in the scapular

plane and ending the range of motion

once your elbow reaches shoulder height

and actually just before recording the

video here speaking with Gregg knuckles

of the mass for search review panel and

he suggested that because the fibers of

the lateral delt run in a bunch of

different directions it might make the

most sense to do some reps with internal

rotation some reps with a neutral grip

and some with external rotation just to

make sure all of the fibers are being

stimulated to a significant degree so

that may be something worth trying out

for yourself now the negative is gonna

be a controlled reversal of the positive

and as a more advanced technique you can

keep constant tension on the delts by

starting another rep without having the

dumbbells come to a full stop at the

bottom but I would say that as you

master form you probably should release

tension at the bottom and initiate every

rep from a quick pause which is gonna

help prevent any swinging or momentum as

you begin to fatigue so I would say by

far the most common error that I see

here is just going too heavy and my

experience even at the high level most

people won't be able to maintain proper

form with dumbbells heavier than 30

pounds or so and as you begin to load

more heavily at a certain point you'll

just progressively get more assistance

from other muscles that are themselves

better trained and better targeted with

other movements I'm so for some point of

reference here now you can see Kai green

at 300 pounds

doing high rep working sets with 20

pound dumbbells so for an isolation

movement like this you really want to

make sure your posture is consistent and

once you start to fatigue at the end of

the set it should come as a result of

you not being able to lift your arms to

the same height with everything else

being held in the same position now I'm

not against controlled cheating as an

advanced technique but I do think that

it should be used as an advanced

intensity technique which is something

that I'm going to be covering in a

separate advanced technique series after

technique Tuesday finishes up sometime

around summer now another common error

that I see here all the time is to

essentially turn the lateral raise into

a front raise but you want to remember

that the scapular plane is only about 15

to 30 degrees forward from perpendicular

so you shouldn't be lifting the

dumbbells excessively out in front I'm

just gonna defeat the whole purpose of

the exercise as it just further

emphasizes the front delt which is

already going to be hit to a very large

degree from any bench pressing or

overhead pressing in your program now

when it comes to alternatives

apart from variations that you say

cables bands or machines actually

personally don't think there is much of

a replacement for the lateral raise now

when performed properly an upright row

can hit the lateral delts quite well

however as a compound movement it is

gonna get the traps more heavily

involved and we're gonna be covering

that in detail in a future technique

tuesday episode so that's all that I

have guys for the lateral raise if you

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all here in the next one for the hip

thrust