both women and men like to have a 3D strong shoulder and lateral raises are without a doubt the key technique to reach that goal, but whether done by dumbbell or cable, this exercise can be risky for your shoulders if you do not focus on what you are doing. the main problems when it comes to shoulder health are 3 things, shoulder impingement, bursitis, and tendonitis(which I will describe in the video).
believe it or not, you can cause all these problems just by performing this exercise wrong! I will tell you not only about the risk factors when doing this exercise, but also how you can make it more challenging and target other muscles in that region as well. you might wonder why I am not isolating the shoulder only, the reason is total isolation is not only going to make you more prone to injury, it also is not possible to do fully. no matter how much you try, you can never isolate just one single muscle(whether shoulder or not) and when you force your body to do so, you are fighting your own anatomy. I will describe why anatomically it is impossible to isolate just your deltoids(delts) and not other muscles like trapezius(traps).
I even talk about what foot positioning is suitable for you! believe me for doing an exercise, every single part of your body matters because it might not be itself that is doing anything specific but, it can affect other parts of your body and change the variables of your training. also, we talk about the angle of your body, more specifically your torso compared to your hand. when it comes to cables, the angle of your torso compared to the floor is not important since gravity is not impacting you straight but, when you have a dumbbell in your hands when your hand is parallel to the floor is the hardest part and when it is vertical it is the easiest part. so to challenge different muscle fibers, you can vary your torso positioning.