Setup
Stand with feet hip-width apart, holding a dumbbell in each hand at your sides with palms facing inward. Let your arms hang naturally with a slight bend in the elbows, chest up and core engaged.
How to do it
- Raise both dumbbells out to the sides in an arc until your arms are parallel to the floor.
- Lead with your elbows rather than your hands, keeping the slight elbow bend throughout.
- Control the descent back to the starting position, resisting gravity on the way down.
- Keep your torso still without swinging or using momentum to lift the weights.
- Pause briefly at the top with arms level before lowering.
Watch out for
- ✗Using too much weight and swinging the body or leaning backward to generate momentum.
- ✗Raising the dumbbells too high above shoulder level, which shifts tension away from the side delts.
- ✗Shrugging the shoulders upward instead of keeping them down and back throughout the movement.