Compound pulling and pushing movements like overhead presses and rowing variations are essential when you want big, strong, and muscular delts. These moves will add size and strength to your delts so that you can look great in those form-fitting shirts. But these compound moves predominantly train the front and rear deltoid—which leaves the lateral deltoid muscles oftentimes neglected.
This is where these lateral raises and variations of this delt-destroying move come in. Lateral raises will add some pop to your lateral deltoid, which gives you the appearance of broader shoulders.
The advantages of this trio of lateral raise variations are that they’ll strengthen your shoulders unilaterally, helping to strengthen imbalances between sides while adding more muscle to the deltoids to improve your shoulder stability. Here we’ll dive into tips and tricks to get the best out of this isolation exercise and three variations to add some pop to your lateral delts.
Lateral Raises Tips and Tricks
When it comes to the lateral raise, creating and maintaining muscular tension should be top priority. This doesn’t mean the load isn’t essential, but there’s no need to overload at the expense of losing tension.
To vary and progress the lateral raise variations below, consider incorporating the four tips (besides more weight and more reps) below:
Perform unilaterally
Add a pause in the top position
Change your body position like performing them in a tall or half kneeling position
Perform them with tempo like 3 seconds up and 3 seconds down
Programming lateral raises for higher reps (12 to 20) for 2 to 4 sets and at the end of your training works best.
The most common mistake here is using too much weight. This usually results in using too much momentum from other body parts like the upper traps and losing good lifting posture. And both will cause you to lose tension in the lateral deltoid.
3 Lateral Raise Variations
Here are three variations for you to try to build boulder shoulders that will be the envy of your friends. You may need to buy bigger shirts.
Pressing your hand into the wall while performing lateral raises on the opposite side gives you extra tension in both lateral deltoids through an irradiation process. While squeezing your hand into the wall, you’re less likely to cheat the weight up, which means extra muscle-building tension.
Benefits: Extra tension, better form, and strengthening imbalances between sides.
How to do it: Stand side on to a wall with a dumbbell in the opposite hand. Press the hand into the wall as hard as possible while performing a lateral raise on the other side. Then switch sides and repeat.
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Tall Kneeling Lateral Raise Ladder Pause Set
Being in the tall-kneeling position decreases your ability to use momentum, giving you more time under tension and core stability and hip mobility benefits. The reduced stability by lowering your center of gravity will provide instant feedback because any deviations in form may result in your face meeting the floor.
Benefits: Improves your form and gives the lateral delts extra muscle-building time under tension.
How to do it: With a pair of light dumbbells in each hand, get into a tall-kneeling position and engage your glutes. Hold one hand at the top of the lateral raise and perform five lateral raises on the other side. Then swap sides, repeat on the opposite side, and go down by one rep each round after doing both sides. Repeat this sequence until you get to one rep.
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Leaning Away Lateral Raise
Changing the angle here puts the lateral deltoid under greater tension due to the increased range of motion and the more significant overload at the top of the rep compared with the standing version. The increased stability by holding on to the squat rack allows you the potential to load up too. Another win-win.
Benefits: The ability to use more resistance than other lateral raise variations and the increased ROM due to the change of angle.
How to do it: Hold a dumbbell in one hand, side onto a squat rack, and grab hold of it around shoulder height. Walk your feet toward the squat rack to create the angle. With your chest up, perform a lateral raise to shoulder height and slowly lower back down. Do all your reps on one side, then switch sides and repeat.
