Exercises for Lateral Delts – Introduction
What are the best lateral deltoid exercises for growing your shoulders?
The shoulders are arguably your most visible body part.
Whether you are dressed formally in a suit or casually in a vest or T-shirt, your shoulders are always on display.
Your shoulders give you that all-important V-taper, giving your upper body most of its width.
Broad shoulders make you look powerful and commanding and can even make your waist look smaller.
When it comes to shoulder training, a lot of exercisers focus on compound lifts such as barbell and dumbbell overhead presses.
While these are excellent general shoulder builders, they tend to emphasize the anterior or front deltoid.
As such, the lateral or side deltoid may go untrained unless you target it more directly.
This article reveals the eight best lateral deltoid exercises and provides you with a sample workout to try.
Deltoid Anatomy Basics
While you don’t need a degree in functional anatomy to build broad, muscular shoulders, knowing a little about how your shoulder muscles work can help make choosing the best exercises somewhat easier.
The deltoid muscles, or delts for shorts, are your most significant shoulder muscles.
They’re made up of three groups of fibers, commonly called heads.
All three heads work together, but by adjusting your movements, it’s possible to emphasize each one.
The three deltoid heads are:
Anterior deltoid
Located at the front of your shoulders, the anterior deltoids are responsible for flexion, horizontal flexion, and medial rotation of your shoulder joint.
Because it works with your pectoralis major or pecs, the anterior deltoid is involved in every chest exercise you perform, so it is often overdeveloped.
The best way to build and strengthen your front deltoids is with overhead pressing movements, such as seated or standing barbell or dumbbell presses.
Front raises are also effective.
Posterior deltoid
The posterior deltoids are located on the back of your shoulders.
Also known as your rear delts, these muscles are often underdeveloped, as they’re out of sight and out of mind.
Their main functions are extension, horizontal extension, and external rotation of the shoulder joint.
The rear delts are a critical posture muscle and are best trained with exercises like face pulls, rear flyes, and band pull-aparts.
Lateral deltoid
More commonly known as the medial deltoid or middle delts, the lateral deltoid heads are located on the sides of your shoulder joint.
Their only real function is shoulder abduction, meaning they lift your upper arm out and away from the midline of your body.
Their lateral position means this deltoid head gives your shoulders their width, contributing to your V-taper.
The three deltoid heads
The 8 Best Lateral Deltoid Exercises
So, do you want bigger, broader lateral deltoids?
These are the eight best exercises to use!
#1. Dumbbell lateral raise
Our first exercise is arguably the best way to broaden and strengthen your medial deltoids.
It’s straightforward, accessible, and can be done at home or in a gym.
All you need is a pair of dumbbells, although you can also do it with any weights you can hold in your hands, e.g., water bottles or cans of food.
How to do it:
- Hold a dumbbell in each hand with your arms by your sides, palms turned inward.
- Your elbows should be slightly bent but rigid.
- Pull your shoulders down and back, and brace your core.
- Without using your legs or back for assistance, raise the weights up and out to shoulder height.
- Lower the dumbbells back to your sides and repeat.
You can perform this exercise seated or standing as preferred.
Train one arm at a time if you wish.
Standing dumbbell lateral raise – National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)
#2. Incline dumbbell lateral raise
Incline lateral raises emphasize the first part of the abduction movement.
This lets you overload the first few degrees of motion, which usually go relatively unloaded during regular lateral raises.
You also get to train one arm at a time, which can be useful for identifying and fixing left-to-right strength imbalances.
How to do it:
- Set the backrest on an exercise bench to about 30 degrees.
- Lie on your side on the bench and hold a dumbbell in your uppermost hand with your palm facing your outer thigh.
- Your elbow should be slightly bent but rigid, and your shoulders and hips square.
- Raise your arm out and away from your side until it is just short of vertical.
- Lower the weight back to your leg and repeat.
- Do the same number of reps on both sides.
Incline dumbbell lateral raise
#3. Cable lateral raise
While there is nothing wrong with always using dumbbells for lateral raises, some exercisers enjoy a bit more variety in their workouts.
Cable lateral raises are performed using a cable crossover machine, providing a fun and effective alternative to dumbbell lateral raises.
In addition, cable exercises tend to keep your muscles under constant tension, giving the movement a different feel.
How to do it:
- Attach D-shaped handles to the low pulleys on a cable crossover machine.
- Take the left handle in your right hand and the right one in your left hand so the wire crosses in front of your legs.
- Stand in the middle of the crossover machine.
- Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
- Bend your elbows slightly but keep them rigid throughout.
- Without using your arms or back for assistance, raise your arms up and out to the side until your hands are level with your shoulders.
- Lower your arms and repeat.
You can also do this exercise using one arm at a time or by crossing the cables behind your hips instead of in front.
How to cable side lateral raise
#4. Resistance band lateral raise
If dumbbells and cable crossover machines have a disadvantage, it is that they may be impractical for home workouts.
After all, not everyone has the space or budget to build a fully equipped home gym.
The good news is that you can do lateral raises with a resistance band.
This is the ideal medial deltoid exercise for home trainers.
How to do it:
- Stand on the center of your resistance band and hold the handles to the side of your legs.
- Bend your elbows slightly and then keep them rigid throughout your set.
- Raise your arms up to the side until your hands are roughly level with your shoulders.
- Lower your arms and repeat.
You can also do this exercise by crossing the resistance band in front of your legs, which will shorten it and make it a little more challenging.
How to build bigger shoulders with resistance bands
#5. Barbell upright row
Most exercisers do upright rows for their upper traps.
However, if you take a moment to analyze the movement, you’ll soon see that the shoulders are abducting, so the lateral deltoids are also heavily involved.
Barbell upright rows are basically a compound lateral raise and, as such, allow you to overload your delts with heavier weights.
How to do it:
- Hold a barbell with an overhand shoulder-width grip.
- Stand with the bar in front of your hips, core braced, and shoulders down and back.
- Leading with your elbows, bend your arms and pull the bar up the front of your body to your lower chest.
- Lower the bar back down and repeat.
You can also do upright rows with dumbbells, a low cable machine, or a resistance band.
However, they can be hard on the shoulders, so skip this exercise if it is uncomfortable.
Upright rows – Dangerous or not?
#6. Doorway isometric lateral raise
Isometric exercises involve a lot of muscle tension but no actual movement.
Most require no equipment, making them ideal for home workouts.
This simple yet challenging exercise provides a great way to hammer your lateral deltoids without leaving your house.
How to do it:
- Stand in an open doorway and place your forearms against the inside of the doorframe.
- Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
- Push your arms out as hard as you can.
- Do not hold your breath.
- Maintain the pressure for 15-30 seconds or until your muscles fail.
- Relax for a moment, rest, and repeat.
Depending on the width of your doorway, you may need to press with your elbows rather than your forearms.
Experiment to find the best position for your environment.
Doorway isometric lateral raise
#7. Arm circles
Our next exercise is martial arts training staple.
While it might not be the best muscle builder, it will improve your workout capacity and ability to push through the pain barrier.
It’s also an excellent way to finish your lateral deltoid workout, producing a deep burn and a great pump.
How to do it:
- Raise your arms up and out to the side to form a T-shape.
- Make small circles with your hands.
- Continue for as long as you can.
Try doing arm circles with your palms facing up, down, and forward to change the feel of the exercise.
Arm circles to build shoulder mobility, endurance, and strength
#8. Dumbbell power lateral raises
It’s often said that cheats never prosper, but that’s not always true when it comes to getting stronger and more muscular.
Strategic cheating can help you lift heavier weights and push through the plateaus that might otherwise hold you back.
Dumbbell power raises are an advanced lateral deltoid exercise, so only try it if you know you’re ready.
How to do it:
- Hold a dumbbell in each hand in front of your thighs.
- Your elbows should be slightly bent but rigid.
- Brace your core and pull your shoulders down and back.
- Hinge forward at the hips slightly and bend your knees.
- Stand up and use this momentum to lift the weights out to the side.
- Don’t worry if you can’t lift the dumbbells to shoulder height; just raise them as high as possible.
- Lower the weights under control and repeat.
You don’t have to use power raises for your entire set.
Instead, you could just do a few reps at the end of a set of regular lateral raises to push your muscles beyond failure.
This is an excellent option if you don’t want to do set-extending drop sets or forced reps but still want to turn the intensity level up to the max.
Dumbbell lateral power lateral raises
Lateral Deltoid Workout for Broader Shoulders
Most exercisers don’t need to dedicate an entire workout to a muscle as small as the lateral deltoids.
Instead, this body part is usually trained in conjunction with the other deltoids.
That said, if your lateral delts are particularly small or lagging behind your anterior and posterior deltoids, you may benefit from training them alone.
Do this workout 1-2 times a week for 6-8 weeks to pump up your side delts.
But, before you begin, make sure you warm up your muscles and joints with some light cardio and dynamic mobility and flexibility exercises.
Disclaimer: Please consult with your physician beforehand to ensure that exercise will not exacerbate any medical issues.
Lateral Deltoid Workout © HashiMashi.com
| # | Exercise | Sets | Reps | Recovery |
| 1 | Barbell upright row | 2-4 | 8-12 | 90 seconds |
| 2 | Cable lateral raise | 2-4 | 12-15 | 60 seconds |
| 3 | Incline dumbbell lateral raise | 2-4 | 15-20 | 60 seconds |
| 4 | Arm circles | 1 | AMRAP* | N/A |
*AMRAP = As Many Reps as Possible.
Just keep pumping out the reps until you are unable to continue.
Lateral Deltoid Exercises FAQs
Do you have a burning question about these lateral deltoid exercises or shoulder training in general?
No problem, because we’ve got the answers!
#1. How many reps and sets of these exercises should I do?
Not so long ago, it was generally accepted that the best rep range of muscle building was 6-12.
Training outside of this range was considered inefficient.
However, recent studies have revealed that you can build muscle by doing as many as 30 reps or more per set, providing you train to failure.
This is good news for anyone who prefers to train with light weights and helps explain why bodyweight exercises can be just as effective for building muscle as barbells and dumbbells.
So, while there is nothing wrong with working in the 6-12 rep range, feel free to do more reps if you wish.
Just make sure you take your sets close to failure; otherwise, you may not stimulate your muscles enough for them to grow.
Regarding sets, 2-4 should be enough per exercise for most people.
If you can do more, you are probably resting too long between efforts or stopping too far from failure.
#2. Do my lateral deltoids really need a workout of their own?
The lateral deltoids are pretty small and rarely need to be trained on their own.
Instead, most lifters work their lateral delts as part of a more general shoulder workout, e.g.:
- Overhead barbell press 3 x 6-8
- Face pull 3 x 10-12
- Cable lateral raise 3 x 12-15
- Incline lateral raise 3 x 15-20
However, if you are unhappy with your lateral deltoid development, you may benefit from a few weeks of specialization training to bring them up to scratch.
#3. How often should I train my shoulders?
Most exercisers will get good results from two workouts per body part per week.
This can be achieved in several ways, including a push/pull or an upper body/lower body split program repeated twice.
Two workouts per body part per week provides a good balance between training and recovery.
However, the more you split your body into individual muscles, the harder it becomes to train them with sufficient frequency.
That’s why the body part “bro split” usually only hits each muscle once a week, which is not optimal for most lifters.
#4. Are these exercises good for building strength?
While these deltoid exercises will strengthen your muscles, they aren’t the best movements for this purpose.
Real strength is best built with compound or multi-joint exercises such as presses and pulls.
These exercises allow you to use much heavier loads, which is critical for building strength.
In contrast, an isolation exercise like lateral raises does not work well with heavy weights and low reps.
So, while you will get stronger, the best way to increase your shoulder strength is with overhead presses done with heavy weights for low reps.
#5. XYZ exercise hurts my shoulders – what’s that all about?!
While exercise is good for everybody’s body, some movements can be problematic and can even cause aches and pains.
Most lateral deltoid exercises are relatively joint-friendly, but that doesn’t mean they suit everyone.
If an exercise causes you pain, you should first make sure you are doing it correctly and that you aren’t using too much weight.
If it still hurts, it could be that exercise simply isn’t right for you, and you should drop it and do something else instead.
Don’t worry if you can’t do a particular movement – there are plenty of equally effective exercises you can do instead.
8 Best Lateral Deltoid Exercises – Closing Thoughts
If you want broader shoulders, you must train your lateral or medial deltoids.
This can be done simply by doing an extra lateral deltoid exercise or two in your shoulder workouts or following a specialization routine like the one in this article.
Regardless of which approach you choose, provided you work hard, eat right, and respect your body’s need for rest, your deltoids will soon start to grow.
Wider shoulders can add a lot to your physique, contributing to that much sought-after V-taper.
Whether you train at home or in a gym, the eight movements described above are the most effective exercises for building broader, more muscular lateral delts.
