Lateral Raises at the end of every workout

@pilgrim3d "Stretch" would be at the bottom of the movement, or ideally when using a single-arm cable, with your arm pulled back even further back than 0 degrees, if that makes sense.

Max contraction is at 90 degrees or so.

Cables are great and probably better in quite a few ways, but I do dumbbells for simplicity and convenience (damn things are always taken), and because I hate unilateral work lol.

What I really wish for is a standing plate-loaded lateral raise with accommodating resistance curve, something like this:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZ8G9cKt0jcDP_k2srHdnYeQuhVQ9KxOkafA&usqp=CAU

Because the moment arm decreases as your arm is raised, the resistance is maximized at the bottom (stretched position) and eases up as you get to the hardest position (~90 degrees). In theory I think this would be ideal.

But in practice dumbbells seem fine, and if a resistance curve sucks, just more volume can make up for it probably..
 
@patdude832 you can do this pretty well by raising the cable height to hand level to make it hardest at longer length instead of having it down at the floor. Can also use a DB lying sideways on a bench
 
@patdude832 In general you can probably work with it. Side delts often need a lot of volume. It might be better to try to give some days off and only do 3-4x a week. But doing it near daily isn't that off of what a lot of good advice recommends for specialization programs. My recommendation is
  1. Be tactical with rest days. Don't do it literally every workout but basically put your shoulders "off split" and just work them the first day they feel recovered independent of the rest of your plan. (side note, you can do this for any body part)
  2. Be careful with your overall pushing volume if you're going to do a shoulder specialization period. Yes even if you're just doing side delt work and avoiding front delt. For most people's split you wouldn't have to adjust anything, just don't do a high volume chest specialization split and add shoulder specialization levels of volume on top of it. I only say this because some peoples "normal" chest volume is already doing just a shit ton of chest volume.
  3. Don't just do DB lateral raises. One day do DB lateral raises, but also do cable y raises and behind the back cable raises since these have a strength curve that's usually harder at the bottom, it pairs well with dumbells that start easier and are heaviest at parallel. Or these one arm cable side delt exercises. You can also do cable and/or db upright row (these tend to fix some of the "it hurts the shoulders" issues). Rear delt exercises also largely work the side delts to so rotate those in.
There's a few naysayers regarding doing near daily work on a muscle isn't good, but there's been a number of recent studies showing that dumping absolute shit loads of volume daily or near daily work even in big muscles still has appreciable growth and we haven't actually found a real upper limit yet (the study in question was 52 sets of quads per week). Though a major caveat is you need to adjust overall volume with something so specialized, they just did quads in that study. But that's not as far out that historically as you think. If you think of the guys with "showcase bodyparts": Arnold with his Chest, Platz with his Quads, Larry Scott with his arms? Those guys did do either ridiculously high or daily volume with those showcase muscles. Arnold has said a number of times he was very obsessed with symmetry and proportion so if something looked "off" he'd drop other muscles to basically maintenance and work that bodypart heavily until it looked proportional.
 
@justincann Point 2 is important for sure. I like to alternate with machines and cables when possible. Even with DBs I change the angle (luckily I can handle a lot of internal rotation, which is a nice variant).

Yeah I don't specialize with frequency on anything else. I came to this from trial and error. For example I tried high frequency triceps (just 3x a week) and it really messed with my pushing. Legs or back is a recovery nightmare. Side delts don't seem to mess with anything, which is great because that's my obsession lol.
 
@frustratedhusband Oh man that's a tough one. I'd say find an exercise variant you don't mind. Heck, maybe even try something random like static hold dumbbells out at 90 degrees (can go nice n light for 40ish seconds and push progression each week a few seconds). Or Bands. Or cables. Or Y pulls (dunno if I got the right name there). Or a Seated Laterals Machine.

Or try Seated DB Laterals... or chest supported on a bench Laterals... There's gotta be something out there!

I don't think OHP is strictly necessary or even that great when it comes to BBing unless you really connect with it. But definitely need to find something that stimulates side delts.
 
@frustratedhusband LOL I totally forgot those existed! Probably because it's the one side delt exercise that I don't like haha. But they're great too, I just get irritated with heavier weights so I have to spend a ton of time doing high rep sets.

Sometimes I do them with ropes on a cable machine, feels like a decent variation.
 
@frustratedhusband I'm not a fan at all of Standing OHP, feels really awkward and strains my lower back. I really enjoyed seated barbell press instead however if you can give that a go? Even on a Smith machine
 
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