Spam Lateral Raises Better
What is âSpammingâ?
So I recently have seen a trend through the small threads of fitness videos on YouTube that I consume that discuss a topic that has gotten popular on TikTok apparently where people refer to a protocol given the name âSpam Lateral Raisesâ (I really hope that you understand what spamming is). Essentially, spamming lateral raises is at the end of every workout session, perform 3-4 sets of various forms of the exercise. As many natural lifters do not have big shoulders and the main way to target the side delts is through lateral raises, this has become a very popular idea to add extra delt volume to your routine. This makes perfect sense, the lateral raise is not a movement that is taxing on the body, youâre never going to get sore from a hard set of lateral raises as you would a hard set of squats. Although this is a great idea, I think you can take it even further to save more time in the gym. Iâve tried to add extra sets of an exercises everyday in the gym and sometimes at the end of a workout, you make excuses for not getting that work in and eventually youâre skipping too much for the protocol to be effective.
Note: This is not an excuse to never get your heavy pressing movements in. You should still include vertical pressing in your routine AND making sure to get your rear delt work in too, not only to avoid imbalances but also for shoulder health reasons.
This concept is not very new at all. People have been training with high frequency with either high intensity or high volume for a while for lagging body parts and it really does work. Itâs why you see videos on YouTube blow-up where trainees whoâve never trained their calves consistently start train them daily and see lots of progress. So I donât think spamming lateral raises is the only thing you could do. To borrow the term, you could spam calf raises, or ab work, neck work- movements that wonât tax your CNS much. You could also spam easier variations of the 4 main movements like suspension trainer hack squats, push-ups, bodyweight rows, etc.
How do I implement this idea?
I will say that lateral raises are a bit different and can be one of the easiest of not the easiest âspamableâ movements: It takes very little effort, time, equipment and energy to add them to every single movement of your workout. If youâve ever supersetted compound movements like the bench press with the pull-up or squats and rows, you know that it can be hard to get through. But supersetting with an easier movement is a lot easier and during that time, you can rest to return to that main movement. Something like deadlifts supersetted with band pull aparts are significantly easier to perform than deadlifts supersetted with pullups.
What Iâve been experimenting with is after every single working set and during some warm-up sets, grab a set of dumbbells and do a set of 15-20 lateral raises with medium intensity. This may seem like a lot but it adds very little time as you already have the dumbbells on hand. If youâre in a commercial gym, you donât need to take up another machine or more space, and by the end of the workout you would have done 10 or more sets of lateral raises. If you choose to, you can do this a couple times a week and get 20 sets of lateral raises easily during the week with little effort. What Iâve also been doing is experimenting with what Iâve been calling 100s, an iteration of the poundstone curls where you pick a light accessory movement and you pick a light working weight and perform 100 repetitions without putting the weight down. 100s lateral raises are great with a band as well, and itâs just one big set, no warming up and taking time to rest in between sets. DoggCrapp sets work well here too. So lets say you train 4 times a week, two days you perform my superset-every-movement with lateral raises and the other two days you do 100s. If youâre like me and you train everyday, on your lighter days or when you have down time, you can hit a set of quick 100s with a light band, takes 2 minutes. Thatâs a ton of work with very little effort or time added to youâre routine. Now thatâs how you spam lateral raises.
Also, donât forget:
