How to do the lateral raise

Lateral raises are the exercise that makes your shoulders look wider from the front. Presses mostly work the front of the shoulder, so if you only ever press, the side delts get a fraction of the work they need to grow. A pair of light dumbbells fixes that. The catch is that almost everyone uses too much weight, swings it up and ends up training their traps, so this guide is mostly about slowing down and going lighter.

How to do a lateral raise

1. Stand tall with a light dumbbell in each hand. Feet about hip width apart, dumbbells by your sides or just in front of your thighs, palms facing in.
2. Bend your elbows slightly and lock that angle in. A small bend, about 10 to 20 degrees, takes stress off the elbows. It shouldn't change during the set.
3. Set your shoulders down. Let your arms hang, keep your neck long and your shoulders away from your ears before you start.
4. Raise your arms out to the sides, leading with your elbows. Your arms travel slightly in front of your body rather than straight out to the sides, which is a more comfortable path for most shoulders. Your elbows stay level with or a touch above your hands.
5. Stop at shoulder height or slightly below. Your upper arms should be about parallel to the floor. Pause for a second at the top.
6. Lower over two or three seconds. Stop when the dumbbells are just beside your thighs, without resting them there, and start the next rep.

Done right, you'll feel a burn on the outside of each shoulder, usually within 8 or 10 reps. If it's the top of your shoulders and the sides of your neck that are burning, your traps are doing the work and the weight is probably too heavy.

Cues that help mid-set

"Push the dumbbells out to the walls." Think about moving the weights away from you sideways, not up. It keeps your arms long and gets the side delts working instead of the traps.

"Elbows lead, hands follow." If your hands rise above your elbows, you're lifting with your forearms and turning it into a front raise. Keep the elbows in charge.

"Keep your neck long." A reminder to stop shrugging. If you watch yourself in a mirror, the gap between your shoulders and your ears shouldn't shrink.

If none of those help, sit down on a bench to do them. You can't swing from a seat, which makes the fault obvious fast.

Common mistakes

Swinging the weights up. It looks like a little bounce from the knees and hips, or a lean back at the start of each rep. The momentum does the hardest part of the lift for you. Pick lighter dumbbells, stand still, and start each rep from a dead stop with your arms hanging. There's a case for a little body English on the last couple of reps of a set, but learn the strict version first.

Raising the dumbbells too high. Lifting above shoulder height adds very little for the side delts and gives the traps more of the load. It's also where some people get a pinching feeling. Stop when your upper arms are parallel to the floor.

Shrugging instead of raising. The shoulders creep up toward the ears as the weight goes up. It happens most when the weight is too heavy, because the traps are stronger than the side delts and they take over. Drop the weight and use the "keep your neck long" cue.

Bending the elbows more as the set gets hard. Turning the raise into a sort of upright row makes the lever shorter and the weight easier to lift. Set a small elbow bend at the start and keep it, even on the last rep.

Tilting your pinkies up. The old "pour the water jug" cue turns the thumbs down at the top. We'd skip it: it rotates your shoulder inward while the arm is raised, which is a position that pinches for a lot of people, and you don't need it to work the side delts. Keep your palms facing the floor, or your thumbs a touch higher than your pinkies.

Sets, reps and how much weight to use

Lateral raises work best with light weights and higher reps. Do 3 or 4 sets of 12 to 20, stopping each set with 1 or 2 reps left in the tank. Rest 60 to 90 seconds. They go after your presses in a session, or at the end of an upper-body day. Most people's side delts handle frequent work well, so doing them two or three times a week is reasonable if they're a priority.

Most beginners should start with 5 to 10 lb (2 to 5 kg) dumbbells. If you can't pause at the top for a second, the weight is too heavy. Progress by adding reps first; moving from 10 lb to 15 lb dumbbells is a 50% jump, so you'll often need several weeks at a weight before you're ready for the next pair. Cable raises make smaller jumps easier. Our progressive overload guide covers other ways to keep progressing when the jumps are big.

Here's roughly what people use for their normal working sets, per dumbbell:

Lateral Raise working weights by bodyweight and experience, per dumbbell

Bodyweight	beginner	intermediate	advanced
130 lb (59 kg)	5 lb (2 kg)	15 lb (7 kg)	20 lb (9 kg)
160 lb (73 kg)	10 lb (5 kg)	15 lb (7 kg)	25 lb (11 kg)
190 lb (86 kg)	10 lb (5 kg)	20 lb (9 kg)	30 lb (14 kg)
220 lb (100 kg)	10 lb (5 kg)	20 lb (9 kg)	35 lb (16 kg)
250 lb (113 kg)	15 lb (7 kg)	25 lb (11 kg)	40 lb (18 kg)

Plenty of people with well-developed shoulders use less than the advanced column shows. On this exercise, the weight matters much less than the reps you do strictly. If you're choosing between 20 lb swung up and 12 lb with a pause at the top, pick the 12s.

Variations and alternatives

• Seated lateral raise: the same movement sitting on a bench. It's nearly impossible to swing, which makes it a good way to learn the exercise.
• Cable lateral raise: the cable keeps tension on your side delts at the bottom of the range, where dumbbells feel almost weightless. Stand side-on to a low pulley and raise one arm at a time.
• Lean-away lateral raise: hold a post or rack with one hand and lean away while you raise a dumbbell with the other. It makes the bottom half of the movement harder.
• Machine lateral raise: a fixed path with pads against your arms. Good for pushing sets close to failure.

If lateral raises bother your shoulders even with light weights, try the cable version, and stop a few inches below shoulder height for a couple of weeks. If it still hurts after that, get a physical therapist to take a look.

Lateral raise questions

How heavy should lateral raises be?

Light. You should be able to raise the dumbbells to shoulder height without swinging and pause there for a second. For most people that's somewhere between 5 and 20 lb (2 to 9 kg) per hand, even for experienced lifters.

Do I need lateral raises if I already do overhead presses?

Probably yes. Pressing works mostly the front of the shoulder and gives the side delts less work than people assume. A few sets of lateral raises a week is the easiest way to make up the difference.

Should I do them standing or seated?

Either is fine. Standing lets you use a touch more weight; sitting stops you from cheating. Do whichever lets you keep the reps strict.