If you want capped shoulders, lateral raises are almost non-negotiable.
But which is best: cable or dumbbell lateral raises?
Ask most old-school weightlifters, and they’ll back dumbbells. For them, dumbbells are simpler, more accessible, and proven—most of the best bodybuilders in history relied on the dumbbell lateral raise to build their delts.
New-fashioned gymgoers might disagree.
Many would argue cables have the edge because they keep your delts under constant tension—even when your arms are at your sides and your delts are most stretched. Cables may even let you stretch your side delts further by pulling your arm slightly across your body.
Dumbbells, in comparison, offer zero resistance in that bottom position.
Why does that matter?
Several recent studies suggest muscles grow best when stretched under tension. Dumbbell lateral raises don’t apply tension where your delts are most lengthened, but cable lateral raises do.
So, cables sound like the clear winner. But what happens in practice?
Researchers at Nord University recently pitted cable vs. dumbbell lateral raises to find out.
They had 24 experienced weightlifters do dumbbell lateral raises with one arm and cable lateral raises with the other for 8 weeks. The weightlifters did five sets to failure with each arm twice weekly, keeping all other variables like range of motion and effort the same.
The result?
Both exercises produced identical growth.
Cables did show a slight advantage in the lower region of the side delts—4.6% growth compared to 3.9% for dumbbells. But the difference wasn’t statistically significant, meaning it’s just as likely to be a coincidence as an indicator of the cable version’s superiority.
That’s decent evidence both exercises work well—but I’d stop shy of calling them perfectly equal.
The study was only 8 weeks long, which isn’t enough time for small differences in growth to become statistically significant.
Compare these two over a full year, and I’d expect the extra tension that the cable provides to translate into marginally more growth. But the gap would be small, and most people don’t stick with one variation of an isolation exercise for a year straight anyway—so in practice, this is largely a moot point.
But if I had to pick one, I’d pick the cable lateral raise. The resistance curve is better, it keeps tension on your delts when they’re most stretched, and—since most people do it one arm at a time—it’s easier to maintain strict form throughout each set.
None of this is worth losing sleep over, though.
I’ve worked with tens of thousands of people over the past 20 years, and I’ve seen people build incredible shoulders doing mostly dumbbell lateral raises, mostly cable lateral raises, and a mix of both. What matters most is solid technique, pushing each set close to failure, and staying consistent over time.
But if you’ve been grinding away at dumbbell lateral raises and want to try something new, give the cable or machine version a shot.
