dumbell lateral raises for shoulders

[Roland822]

in the gym, whenever i see people doing these, they are always doing light weights like 10s or 15s, even big people

are you not supposed to go high in weight doing these or what?

[MixmasterNash]

Go heavy. Try to stick with good form. Cheating won't kill you though. Do NOT worry about anterior (front) delt raises, because they get so much work with every pressing exercise. Focus on rear delts.

[hoser813]

The reason why I do light weight lat raises is because I use them as a cool down exercise after my main shoulder lifts like military press and dumbbell shoulder press.

[gopher]

I do them every shoulder workout. I try to stay pretty strict but usually end up using a slight cheat to squeeze out one or two extra reps. I usually shoot for 8-10 reps with the heaviest possible weight that I can use with good form.
Cool down exercise? Isn't that what walking to the car is for?

[fixationdarknes]

I think the reason most people use light weight is because they don't have strong medial delts? Or perhaps they want to get "toned."

[tsungwei]

how bad is it to use heavy weight and cheat a lot? for ex. i can probably do side laterals with perfect form with 25 lbs x 8 but i use up to 50 lbs x 6 reps, cheating.

[WILL006]

I do light weight because when i go heavy at the top of the movement its hard to get the squeze. i feel like to much cheating robbs the exercise .With the lighter weight i think the shoulders burn more. thats just me.

[fixationdarknes]

how bad is it to use heavy weight and cheat a lot? for ex. i can probably do side laterals with perfect form with 25 lbs x 8 but i use up to 50 lbs x 6 reps, cheating.

Personally, I don't like cheating but some people encourage it at the end of sets and such. My advice is to just use the most weight possible while keeping the best form possible.

[Supreme Allah]

Personally my shoulder movements are where I am probably MOST strict with form. Arnold presses, front and lateral raises, etc. I go for perfect control every single rep. Yeah this means I'm progressing by adding like, 2 lbs to one side of an adjustable dumbell every few weeks, but I want big strong healthy shoulders, and could care less about being able to say "Yeah I lateral raise 30s", esp. knowing I didn't do it right in the first place..

[IRN-BRU]

People use light weight because it's a mechanically difficult lift, based on the length of your arm extension. I dropped these from my routine because there's a "total weight lifted" competition over the next 6 weeks in my gym. But they are good. I recommend keeping it light enough that you can get above parallel and STOP, there's no point waving the weight around like a tube! :-)

[Canadian Crippler]

I really don't like heavy cheating on side laterals because it's so easy to do. The negative portion of the lift is just as important, so if you can't control it down then I think you're going too heavy.

[TwiloMike]

Shoulders are one of the areas most prone to injury and also most abused while working upper body in general, so I definitely understand hesitation in lifting too much weight laterally. I'm almost 6'3 and I drag my knuckles- the amount of work required for me to complete a lateral raise is a lot more than for a 5'6 punk (no offense to the height challenged). I go heavy on presses but not so much on raises- I prefer to keep perfect form.

[Wierz]

Go heavy. Try to stick with good form. Cheating won't kill you though. Do NOT worry about anterior (front) delt raises, because they get so much work with every pressing exercise. Focus on rear delts.

Can you explain how to work on these types of raises? I do my raises to the side, with about a 20 degree bend in my elbows, and I lean forward about 30 degrees, and raise the dumbells up and squeeze back? Is this what you're talking about?

[drew]

I use light weight (8-15 lbs) with these, but I do them with arms straight out and do a fairly slow rep with a pause at the top. These are done at the end of my bench workouts and are primarily to keep my shoulders healthy, because they suck.

[Minotaur]

I remember back when I first started working out and had a set of blue plastic-coated 5 lb dumbells. I could hardly raise them. Now I'm up to about 40s for 3 sets of 6-8... 45 if I really cheat and heave them up. But with 40s I can still pretty much control them.

Btw, I'm 5'5" and take a 33" sleeve length. So I guess I have an advantage in lifting a slightly heavier weight.

[bigsethmeister]

i won't knock occasional judicious use of cheating but I suspect you'd get your best results by using the most weight you possibly can with fairly strict form. you at least should be able to squeeze at the top and control and resist the weight a bit on the way down.

[D Breyer]

i have fairly big (muscular) shoulders, and i find 15s hard to manage for more then 8-10 reps and 2-3 sets... i think its a hard exercise to go heavy on, or at least you dont add weight on too frequently. though yesterday i saw a guy doing like 12 rep sets with 35s...

[Mr Joshua]

I'd say over 90% of the people I see to side-laterals in the gym are doing them wrong. It's an exercise that you need to check your ego at the door for.

The muscles worked are a small, generally weak group. The leverage is not good (ie...extending your arm to almost full length). So people choose instead to grab a much larger weight and swing the weight up and then let it basically drop down just as fast. I'm not against a one or two cheat reps for most exercises but use a critical eye and watch most guys doing this exercise next time you're at the gym. I guarantee you that almost using more than 35-40 lb dumbells is cheating on most reps. Swinging not only with his arms but with his back too.

Shoulders are a very delicate and tricky area that are easily injured. My advice: forget your ego on this one and use strict strict form with a lighter weight. Sure the guy next to you swinging the 50s up and down will scoff at you, but in a few years, when he's getting surgery for his impingement syndrome or torn rotator cuff you can walk by him with your softball sized lateral deltoids as he rehabs with the 2.5s and just snicker to yourself.

[shansen008]

Personally, I don't like cheating but some people encourage it at the end of sets and such. My advice is to just use the most weight possible while keeping the best form possible.

Exactly, i never go over 30lb's. Arms completely straight, shoulders back, arms hanging at sides at the beginning of the movement, not crossing over in front of you. This is a form of cheating IMO, since you are abel to accelerate the weight.

With 30lb's i can get my 8, if i go over 30 i feel it plaices to much strain. Eventually it will go up im sure, but it s aslow progressing muscle for me since the shoulder is so easy to strain. I just take it slow.

[wrestlemaniac]

Just because the weight is low doesnt' mean the person isn't lifting heavy. My Lateral delts, even though I have seen gains, haven't seen the numbers skyrocket quite as quickly as the rest of my lifts. I'd imagine most people would say the same.

[jollyrancher]

I worked shoulders today and did laterals with 10lbs on each side. I hurt my shoulder about two years ago and it took about a full year to feel right. I still feel twinges in it with odd movements so I'm very careful.

As mentioned, shoulders are easy to injure. I'll add to that they are also hard to heal. Good form with weights in control is the answer for your shoulder. Who cares who's watching? I'll do flys with 5lbs if I know it's what's best for me. I don't care if the guy next to me is benching 6 plates, I'm not that guy. Trust me, you don't want to get cocky or try to compare penis size when it comes to shoulder exercises. Just do what you can without risking injury.

[wrestlemaniac]

Yeah, if someone was trying to get me to do a shoulder exersize that involved comparing our penises I probably wouldn't wanna do it.

[wrestlemaniac]

maybe if he had REALLY big shoulders...

[Dedicated]

My advice is to just use the most weight possible while keeping the best form possible.

I agree.