Dumbbell lateral raise muscles worked

Every role here is for this technique: standing, a dumbbell in each hand, arms raised out to the sides to shoulder height with the elbows slightly bent.

What muscles does the dumbbell lateral raise work?

The prime movers of the dumbbell lateral raise are the lateral deltoid and supraspinatus. They produce shoulder abduction. The synergists are the anterior deltoid, the posterior deltoid, the upper trapezius and serratus anterior. Six stabilizers hold joints and segments still, among them infraspinatus, teres minor and subscapularis.

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Joint actions and their prime movers

The joint actions of the dumbbell lateral raise and the prime movers that produce each
Joint action	Prime movers
Shoulder abduction	The lateral deltoid and supraspinatus

Every muscle by role

A prime mover produces the lift’s main joint action against the load; a synergist assists that action, or adds a secondary action the lift needs; a stabilizer contracts mostly isometrically to hold a joint or a segment still. A role describes what the muscle does in the technique above, not how hard it works or how much it grows.

Prime movers 2

Prime movers in the dumbbell lateral raise, with what each does
Muscle	What it does here
Lateral deltoid	Shoulder abduction
Supraspinatus	Shoulder abduction, with the deltoid from the start Often said to start the movement, but it switches on together with the deltoid, the trapezius and serratus anterior, not before them (Reed et al. 2013).

Synergists 4

Synergists in the dumbbell lateral raise, with what each does
Muscle	What it does here
Anterior deltoid	Shoulder abduction
Posterior deltoid	Shoulder abduction
Upper trapezius	Rotating the shoulder blade upward
Serratus anterior	Rotating the shoulder blade upward

Stabilizers 6

Stabilizers in the dumbbell lateral raise, with what each does
Muscle	What it does here
Infraspinatus	Holding the head of the humerus in its socket
Teres minor	Holding the head of the humerus in its socket
Subscapularis	Holding the head of the humerus in its socket
Middle trapezius	Steadying the shoulder blade
Wrist and finger flexors	Gripping the dumbbells
Erector spinae	Holding the trunk upright

Lowering and lifting

What the prime movers of the dumbbell lateral raise do in each half of a rep
Phase	What the prime movers do
Lowering	The lateral deltoid and supraspinatus lengthen as the arms come down
Raising	They shorten to lift the arms out to the sides

Where these prime movers also work

The lateral deltoid: a prime mover in no other lift here; synergist in the standing overhead press.
Supraspinatus: a prime mover in no other lift here.

Sources

Neumann, Kinesiology of the Musculoskeletal System, 3rd ed. (2017)
Kendall et al., Muscles: Testing and Function, 5th ed. (2005)
Reed et al. (2013), J Electromyogr Kinesiol 23(2):425

The cited studies that measured muscle activity used electromyography, and a larger signal need not mean more force or more growth (Vigotsky et al. (2018), Front Physiol 8:985). The roles draw on those studies for which muscles a lift involves and how two lifts differ, never to rank one muscle against another.

See these muscles in 3D

Visualiser · Biology Muscles Worked by Exercise 3D Explorer Choose a lift and a real body lights its prime movers, synergists and stabilisers, front and back, with the same muscles in 3D. Visualiser · Biology Muscle Origin, Insertion and Action Explorer Paint a muscle’s origin and insertion on real 3D bones, or click a bone to see what attaches to it.