Strength Training: Side-Lying Lateral Raises

Hello everyone! With 2018 approaching quickly many of you have probably developed a New Year's resolution. Resolutions can be anything, but many people choose to focus on increasing their physique. If this is your resolution I can help you! Today, I will be informing you how to correctly execute the side-lying lateral raises exercise, which helps develop the deltoids. 

The deltoid is the main muscle located within your shoulder. This workout will strengthen and will also assist with making the muscle more toned. To do this workout, you must first lie on one side on the floor or a bench, if you own one, and clench the dumbbell with an overhand grip. Remember to prop yourself up off the ground with your elbow parallel to the ground. Next, while inhaling, raise your arm to a vertical position. After that, exhale and lower the dumbbell back to your side ending the rep. Doing 10 to 12 reps is recommended, anything more puts you at risk for injury and can possibly strain your muscles.

                                                              

Helpful pointers and tips: Support your back and avoid a back injury by tightening the abdominal muscles so your back will be supported. Also, having a weight lifting bench is very helpful because it prevents your elbow from becoming sore. Additionally, having a bench allows your workout to be more beneficial because you do not have to worry about balancing. However, doing this workout without a bench strengthens your core and your abdominal muscles. Finally, changing your dumbbell position from either beginning in front of the thigh or behind the thigh helps with working out different areas of the deltoid. Delavier writes "Varying the initial position (dumbbell in front of or behind the thigh) allows you to work all the deltoid fibers" (Delavier 45). This means that switching up your starting dumbbell position will help you strengthen all the deltoid fibers because there are three deltoid fibers in all which are the anterior deltoid, deltoid multipennate or middle deltoid, and the posterior deltoid. So by altering the dumbbell starting location you can work all three of these deltoid fibers.

In front of thigh dumbbell starting position.

Behind thigh dumbbell starting position.

Thank you for reading my blog I appreciate the time you spend reading my posts! I hope this exercise that I have showed you today will assist you in strengthening your deltoids. Hopefully, this workout can help you reach the physical goals that you have set for yourself. Personally, I prefer to do this workout without the bench because it helps strengthen my core muscles along with my deltoids,but what method do you guys prefer?

Works Cited
Delavier, FreÌdeÌric. Strength Training Anatomy . Third ed., Human Kinetics, 2010.