Precision Style Side Lateral Raises

OK these videos aren't all that great because I just decided to film them on the spur of the moment by leaning my phone against a nearby object and hoping for the best.

Disregard the 40kg dumbbell press, we're going to talk about the side lateral raises that come after.



In my program, side lateral raises are what I consider a PRECISION movement. Of course the program is based on compound exercises for example heavy ass deadlifts, squats, various heavy ass pushing and pulling movements for upper body. These I refer to as POWER movements as it's just about developing that brute strength and encouraging our body to promote and preserve muscle and bone mass at the expense of body fat.

Obvious, right?

With these PRECISION or isolation exercises though, the strategy is a little different. We're not just trying to recruit as much muscle as possible over multiple joints to produce the most powerful contraction and move as much weight as possible as per the POWER section of the program. As the category name would imply, this is more about a precise movement targeting a specific muscle or muscle group. In this example, the lateral deltoid.

So, you'll notice I am sitting down. This means I can't rob myself of the effectiveness of the exercise by bobbing up and down from the knees or however else you might see people generate some momentum to swing some heavier weights up into the air on this exercise. That's not the point. It isn't what we're trying to do. Go lighter if necessary, and perform the movement with precision.

You may notice that I'm trying to perform a strict shoulder abduction movement, without the rotation that a lot of people utilise when performing this exercise. Through experimentation I found that this was the best way to activate and isolate my lateral deltoid as per the aim of this exercise. I would be open to other opinions on this point, but this is how I like to perform and instruct the exercise.

Here's the main point of this post. Watching this back I'm surprised how fast I'm actually performing each rep. What I am trying to do here is raise the dumbbells to shoulder height via shoulder abduction, pause at the top, and then lower slowly.

Note that I do not lower all the way back to the starting position. I want to maintain that muscle activation at all times while performing the exercise. In theory, I pause at the top... and then, I used to say "gradually release the muscle contraction to slowly lower back to the starting position". Really it is more like maintaining that muscle contraction to a level that is just short of what would be required to hold that position at the top of the movement. Then BOOM snap that contraction back on at 100% to raise back up again.

Even with a relatively light weight, targeting a relatively small muscle, this is very demanding and you'll have earned your minute and a half rest after 12 to 18 reps.

Here's a better video from a couple of weeks ago demonstrating the same principle on front raises, targeting the anterior deltoid.

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Let me tell you something. Sometimes I get frustrated.

I am not here to tell people whatever lies that they want to hear and charge a fee for it. I'm not even here to tell people the bad news they expect to hear. To confirm their fears or whatever.

A lot of people want that, subconsciously I guess. That sort of "oh, that's what I was afraid of... I can't do that because I'm not good enough" sort of thing. And they'll pay out anyway like as a penance for not being good enough. That's how so many of those nonsense gadgets on the tv get sold all the time. You know, those "fits right under the bed" type of things. Great, I'll put it under the bed and never use it, but at least I paid my 195.95 plus postage and handling to make up for feeling guilty about not being in better shape like I feel like I'm supposed to be.

I am here to do the only thing I know how to do and that is to tell the truth as best as I understand it, as simply and eloquently as I'm able to. The truth about diet and training and exercise isn't even bad news, anyway. Sure, you have to put in some effort, but you don't have to suffer and starve and restrict. In fact, all of those things are counter productive. You need to train effectively, and fuel appropriately.

Pay a little attention and plan in advance to meet appropriate intake targets to support your lifestyle and provide sufficient energy, protein and other nutritional resources to enable the desired outcome. That is, a transition or transformation to a stronger, leaner, more sculpted body condition within a suitable weight range.

There is nothing difficult about this. If you are enthusiastic about pursuing such a goal, it is very easy to get your nutrition right and it will not seem like a chore. If you are less enthusiastic... well, I'm not here to bust your balls about doing anything you're not interested in doing. If it's something you want, do what it takes. If not then don't.

The nutrition side is easy so long as you are training effectively with a suitable program that is appropriate to your goal. For my clients and for myself, I have put together the best program I know how. The most methodical, utilitarian, strategic and efficacious system I could devise, and then I made it as adaptable as I could to suit different people's needs.

You cannot come to me and say "well, I just wanna do this" and expect me to tell you that's just as good. You cannot come to me and ask "well why can't I just do it this way instead?". I don't get to decide what is going to work and produce the result. You have to do what it actually takes to facilitate that physical transition in body condition. My job is to tell you what that is.

I'm not going to tell people "yeah that's just as good, we can do that" for the sake of getting them to sign up and pay their fees and then not get any results because they're doing what they wanted to do rather than what would actually produce that result. There's a million other people who will do that if you want to go looking for one, but not me. Sometimes, I don't even know why not.

Bottom line you are not doing MY program unless you're doing MY program. If you want the sort of results my clients get, you need to follow my system.

There's a whole heap of information right here. Everything you need to know to make an informed and educated decision about signing up, or not. Read it. Do your homework. If you think this might be for you, subscribe to the "pre-program" email series which will deprogram whatever crap other idiots out there are polluting the world with to scare you into buying their stupid bro-science and starvation programs. Once you've unlearned all of that, you will really understand just why you will be successful on my system, just like everyone else has been so far.

Do what it takes to produce the result that you actually want.

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Do you usually make a habit of taking advice from idiots?

A show of hands, please. How many people reading this are in the habit of taking advice from idiots?

Random idiots who don't know a thing about you, telling you their opinion on something that is none of their concern. Or known idiots, for that matter. The sort who've got to put their 2 cents in on everything because they know it all... when if it was up to you, you wouldn't even keep them around for the sake of having someone to swear at when you felt like it, because they'd find a way to mess that up too.

Which is not to suggest that everyone out there is completely clueless and hopeless. Certain people you might be able to count on, you might seek their advice on a certain topic that they have knowledge and experience in. In general though, unless they're one of those people and it is one of those topics... you usually don't appreciate random idiots wandering into your life to tell you what you're not doing right. You'd tell 'em to go stick their worthless opinion somewhere uncomfortable, am I right?

Except, for some reason... when it comes to diet and exercise. Everyone thinks they're a nutritionist, all of a sudden.

Vegetarian? Oh you're not getting enough protein.
Trying to lose weight? Oh that's too many carbs.
Already active and in quite good shape? Oh, are you sure you should be eating that? I thought you were the healthy type?

And for some reason we take all these unfounded, uneducated, unwanted opinions to heart. Like maybe they're right, and I really shouldn't have had that one snack because I was hungry. Or like I really should feel guilty because I had a slice of birthday cake along with everyone else, which was fine for them, but not for me for some reason. Or like even though I am an active adult with a busy schedule apparently I don't require energy to do all that and I should be cutting carbs like it's still the 90s or something stupid like that.

NAH UH. What is on your plate is no one else's business. They don't know your requirements. They don't know jack about nutrition other than some nonsense they picked up from some other know nothing know it all on the internet or where ever. Even if they did, how are they going to know how that one choice they're judging you on fits into your total intake and how that compares to your total energy requirements?

Any living organism requires energy and nutrients to be alive. As an active human being, especially one with an interest in producing results from a training program... jesus christ... how... HOW the hell can you possibly expect to achieve anything without proving those nutritional resources? Protein, energy, vitamins and minerals... all are crucial and required. Up to a certain amount, everything you put it WILL be utilised, and that amount is probably a lot higher than you think.

Where you pull those energy and other resources from is irrelevant. Food that is enjoyable still provides energy and other resources that you REQUIRE to be alive and to enable results from training.

Stop listening to random idiots. You wouldn't let them walk into your workplace and start telling you how to do your job there. You wouldn't let random nobodies tell you what TV shows to watch, or what radio station to listen to. But you're going to listen to people trying to tell you what foods to eat? Trying to make you feel like a bad person for eating foods that you like, or just eating at all?

That's ridiculous. 

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Why a lot of you are wasting your time and energy with exercise.

Favourite gym selfie from a while back.

It'd probably be real easy to post up a photo of one of my clients... or... no, not even one of my clients. It'd probably be real easy to post up a photo of some pro fitness model I never met before, and tell people "one session a week and this could be you" like a lot of jerk offs do on their facebooks. Or those stupid ads on the TV with some super fit athlete telling you "3 and 3/4 minutes a day on this ab machine that stores right under your bed, get the body of your dreams".

Unfortunately all of that is a load of old bollocks.

You aint going to achieve jack shit doing a few minutes a day, or one PT session every Monday night, or every couple of weeks, or whatever.

Don't shoot the messenger for telling you the truth, though. Cos if I don't do there's not many others out there who will.

If you have a weight loss goal, you need to be more active on a daily basis. Ideally you would adopt a more efficient strategy though rather than simply "increased activity". If you want to end up STRONG AND SCULPTED whether you need to lose weight or not, you need to train productively on a regular basis.

This doesn't mean you never sit still all day, install a treadmill or a spin bike in the office and attach the computer to it or whatever else. I call that "exercise bulimia", if anything. It means SCHEDULING an hour or so, most days, to follow a strategic program to build, sculpt and maintain your goal figure.

Being prepared to actually show up and put in the effort is crucial. I tend to work with people who have been prepared to work harder than just about anyone, but without seeing the results they deserve, because unfortunately like most people they have been following strategies that are DESTRUCTIVE, rather than CONSTRUCTIVE.

Running yourself into the ground through exhaustion in an effort to "burn more calories" is not how it works. That's what you hear almost everywhere else, but it is NOT how it works. Train with the mindset of creating something new of yourself, rather than of destroying what you are now. Train in a manner that creates your goal condition by encouraging your body to become healthier and stronger, rather than to try to force it to find some way to survive being over worked, under fueled and stressed out, as if the logical way to build a healthy and strong body is through subjecting it to the most unhealthy possible circumstances in an attempt to "shock" it into utilising fat stores for energy.

Isn't that exactly what is suggested, almost everywhere else? It is madness. Completely illogical and inefficient.

To create a leaner, stronger, more sculpted body condition, you must train strategically and diligently towards that goal. Perhaps not literally every day, since recovery is also important, but you would train most days, as best as circumstances allow. You would train constructively and productively to prioritise the creation and maintenance of lean muscle and bone tissue at the expense of adipose tissue.

Training regularly is 50% of the equation. If your dietary habits are not appropriate, you will not see consistent progress. If your total energy intake is excessive, you will not see a reduction in adipose (fat) tissue. However, if your total energy intake is insufficient, your body will not have adequate resources available to create and maintain lean mass. This is of crucial importance and cannot be overlooked. You must provide adequate but not excessive nutritional resources, suitable to fuel your lifestyle and to recover and adapt favourably to training.

For this reason, diets that are restrictive in terms of either choice of foods or provision of energy are counter productive.

If you are already putting in the effort to exercise regularly, and are paying some attention to your diet, you deserve to see the results you are working for. If you apply that same, or perhaps not even as much effort but with a more sensible and strategic strategy that is conducive to your goal, success will be inevitable.

Subscribe to my email series to unlearn all of the common myths and misconceptions that are robbing you of the results you so richly deserve.

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You cannot expect a specific result from doing random shit.

Serious talk here.

Adopting certain habits because they're "healthier" is great. Excellent idea. So long as they actually are "healthier" and you don't start to stress out over any unrealistic levels of adherence, I'm all for it. However... 

Body type & condition does not necessarily indicate health.

We have all learned this already, haven't we? Someone could be appear to be lean and athletic, but actually be running themselves into the ground and miserable. Someone else might not look so athletic, be carrying a little "extra" weight or whatever, but be in perfectly good health, fit and strong.

The reverse is also true. There is no sense in being frustrated that you are not seeing progress towards your goal body condition on the basis that you have adopted some healthier habits. Which is not to say that there is no point in adopting those habits, but the point is that they are healthier, not that they are necessarily conducive to your training and body condition goals. Those are related, but still separate issues.

Adopt those healthier habits within the context of an approach that is actually appropriate with your goal though? Then you are set for good health and good times.

Your TOTAL ENERGY INTAKE must be in a range that is appropriate to your lifestyle and your goal, most of the time. This does not have to be accurate to an obsessive level of adherence at a precise target, but it does have to be "in an appropriate range most of the time". Under eating is not going to do it. Even if all you eat are the healthiest choices of foods, under eating is not going to do it. You might be providing all the best nutritional resources through those choices of foods, but if you are not providing enough of them your body cannot reap the rewards of training. Rather you are just running yourself into the ground physically and emotionally.

Your APPROACH TO TRAINING must be constructive. Do not be sucked into the idea of fatigue chasing workouts to burn energy. Train constructively to put those nutritional resources to good use in building your goal body condition by getting stronger and healthier.

For people who think they have tried "everything" to lose weight or get into more athletic shape already.

A lot of people feel this way and I can empathise with you if you are one of them. People have tried all sorts of unpleasant, restrictive diets and so on... different exercise programs, maybe they've tried the healthy stuff too as discussed above. If you've tried the healthy way, and you've tried the horrible way and neither of them worked for you... it might be easy to feel that you've tried it all and nothing works.

I put it you however, there is one thing most people haven't tried. Something so obvious it may sound ridiculous at first, but if you really, REALLY think about it... how could it not work out?

Have you tried eating about the right amount to support a suitable healthy weight range, fuel your lifestyle and produce changes in body condition from an effective training program?

Now people might be thinking "of course I bloody have tried that. I barely ate anything at all when I was on that stupid such n such diet"... right? That's not what I asked though. That's not "about the right amount" as described.

If you've been prepared to try difficult, unpleasant and restrictive approaches several times in the past for no results, why wouldn't you at least try something relatively easy, not at all unpleasant or restrictive, that just makes sense and has worked for so many other people?

I am launching my new "Flexible Fueling pre-program" this week. It is free, and it is designed to deprogram any and every disordered and incorrect idea that most people have about their body and their relationship with food and exercise.

You can register at the top right of this page, or click here to learn a little more about the pre-program first.

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