Overhead Press vs Lateral Raises: Best Shoulder Exercises Compared

Two exercises that do very different things

I get this question all the time: "If I could only do one shoulder exercise, should I overhead press or do lateral raises?" And the honest answer is that the question itself is flawed, because these two exercises target different parts of the shoulder in different ways. Asking which is better is like asking whether squats or leg curls are better for legs. They are not interchangeable.

But I understand why people ask. Time is limited, and not everyone wants to spend 45 minutes on shoulders. So let me break down exactly what each exercise does, what it is best for, and how to get the most out of both.

The overhead press: the king of shoulder strength

The overhead press (also called the military press, standing press, or just "the press") is the most fundamental shoulder exercise that exists. You take a barbell or dumbbells, and you press them overhead. Simple.

What makes it special is that it is a compound movement. Your anterior delts do the heavy lifting, but your lateral delts, upper traps, triceps, and core all contribute significantly. It is one of the few exercises where you can load the shoulders very heavy and progressively overload in small increments over time.

The overhead press also builds functional pressing strength that carries over to everything. Better bench press lockout, better ability to put stuff on high shelves, better at pressing opponents away in contact sports. It is a "real world" strength movement in a way that lateral raises will never be.

I should note: when I say "overhead press," I am primarily talking about the standing barbell version. Seated dumbbell press is good too, but the standing barbell press demands more core stability, allows more total load, and is easier to progressively overload.

How to overhead press with proper form

Setup:

• •Unrack the barbell at collarbone height. The bar should sit on your front delts and upper chest, not in your hands with bent wrists.
• •Grip the bar just outside shoulder width. Your forearms should be vertical when the bar is in the starting position.
• •Feet shoulder-width apart, slight bend in the knees. Squeeze your glutes and brace your core like you are about to get punched. This creates a stable base.

The press:

• •Take a breath, brace hard, and press the bar straight up.
• •As the bar clears your forehead, push your head through. "Push your head through the window" is a classic cue. Your head moves forward as the bar passes it so that the bar travels in a straight vertical line, not an arc.
• •Lock out overhead with the bar directly over the middle of your foot. Arms fully extended, shoulders shrugged slightly at the top.
• •Lower under control back to the starting position on your front delts. Reset your breath and brace before the next rep.

Common overhead press mistakes:

Excessive back lean. Some lean is normal and necessary, but if you are bending backward so much that the press becomes a standing incline bench, you are compensating for weakness. Drop the weight.

Pressing in an arc. The bar should travel in a straight vertical line. If it goes around your face in a big arc, you are wasting energy and making the lift harder. Move your head out of the way, not the bar.

Not locking out. Full extension overhead. Elbows locked, shoulders slightly shrugged to engage the upper traps. Stopping short cheats you out of the full range of motion.

Wrist position. Just like the bench press, the bar should sit in the heel of your palm with wrists stacked over forearms. Bent wrists under a heavy overhead press is a recipe for wrist pain.

The lateral raise: the king of shoulder width

If the overhead press builds shoulder strength, the lateral raise builds shoulder width. Specifically, lateral raises target the medial (side) deltoid, which is the muscle that creates the wide, capped shoulder look when viewed from the front.

Here is why this matters: the medial delt is not heavily loaded during pressing movements. Kak et al. (2014) and Botton et al. (2013) both showed that the overhead press primarily activates the anterior (front) delt, with only moderate activation of the medial delt. Lateral raises flip this, producing very high medial delt activation with minimal anterior delt involvement.

If your goal is to look wider, to fill out t-shirts across the shoulders, and to create that V-taper from shoulders to waist, lateral raises are non-negotiable. You can overhead press until you are blue in the face and still have narrow-looking shoulders if your medial delts are underdeveloped.

I have coached dozens of guys who pressed heavy but looked narrow from the front. We added consistent lateral raise volume (4-6 sets, 3 times per week) and within 3-4 months, their shoulders visibly widened. It is one of the most reliable transformations you can make.

How to lateral raise without destroying your shoulders

Lateral raises have a reputation for causing shoulder impingement, and it is deserved if you do them wrong. The internal rotation at the top of a traditional lateral raise can pinch the supraspinatus tendon under the acromion. But with a few tweaks, you can do them pain-free.

The movement:

• •Stand with dumbbells at your sides, slight bend in the elbows (about 15-20 degrees). Keep this elbow angle locked throughout.
• •Raise the dumbbells out to the sides until your arms are roughly parallel to the floor, maybe slightly above.
• •Lead with your elbows, not your hands. Think about pushing your elbows toward the walls, not lifting the dumbbells.
• •At the top, your pinky finger should NOT be higher than your thumb. The old "pour a pitcher of water" cue (rotating the dumbbell so the front tips down) is outdated and increases impingement risk. Keep your thumbs level with or slightly higher than your pinkies.
• •Lower under control. 2-3 seconds on the way down. The eccentric is where a lot of the growth stimulus comes from.

Critical form tips:

Do not go too heavy. This is the exercise where ego lifting is the most common and the most counterproductive. If you are swinging 40-pound dumbbells with full-body momentum, your traps and momentum are doing the work, not your medial delts. Drop to 15-20 pounds, slow it down, and actually feel the muscle working. I promise you will get more out of it.

Slight forward lean. Lean your torso forward about 10-15 degrees. This shifts the line of pull to better target the medial delt and reduces the impingement angle at the top. Do not lean so much that it becomes a bent-over raise.

Stop at parallel or just below. Raising the arms above parallel to the floor shifts the work to the upper traps. If you want to hit the medial delt, parallel is the sweet spot.

Cable lateral raises are arguably even better than dumbbells because the cable provides tension at the bottom of the range of motion (where dumbbells provide almost zero tension). If your gym has cables, use them for at least some of your lateral raise volume.

Muscle activation: what the data says

Here is a simplified comparison based on EMG research from Botton et al. (2013) and Campos and Silva (2014):

The takeaway is clear: the overhead press is an anterior delt and pressing movement. The lateral raise is a medial delt isolation movement. They hit different parts of the shoulder and should both be in your program.

Which one builds bigger looking shoulders

This depends on your starting point and your definition of "bigger looking."

If you have small shoulders overall and very little muscle mass, the overhead press will give you the most bang for your buck. It builds the front of the shoulder, adds mass to the upper traps, strengthens the triceps, and develops total upper body pushing strength. A guy who can strict press 135-185 pounds for reps is going to have decent shoulders regardless of whether he does lateral raises.

But if you already have a base of shoulder strength and want to look wider, the lateral raise becomes more important. The medial delt is what creates width. It is the muscle that sticks out to the side when someone looks at you from the front. And it is criminally undertrained in most people because pressing alone does not develop it enough.

In my experience, the guys with the most impressive-looking shoulders do both: they press heavy for overall mass and strength, and they do a high volume of lateral raises for width. Skipping either one leaves something on the table.

Programming both for maximum shoulder development

Here is how I recommend setting it up on a typical push-pull-legs or upper-lower split:

Push Day 1 (strength emphasis):

• •Standing barbell overhead press: 4x5-8 @ RPE 8
• •Lateral raise (dumbbell): 3x12-15 @ RPE 8-9
• •Face pulls: 3x15-20

Push Day 2 (hypertrophy emphasis):

• •Seated dumbbell press: 3x8-12 @ RPE 8
• •Cable lateral raise: 4x12-15 @ RPE 9
• •Rear delt flye: 3x15-20

Additional lateral raise volume (any training day):

• •Lateral raises between sets of other exercises: 2-3 sets of 15-20

Weekly volume targets:

A note on lateral raise frequency: The medial delt is a small muscle that recovers quickly. You can train it 3-5 times per week without issues. Many bodybuilders do a few sets of lateral raises every training day. This high-frequency approach works well because each session adds a small growth stimulus, and the cumulative effect over a week is significant.

If your shoulders are a weak point, try adding 3 sets of lateral raises to every training session for 8 weeks. That might be 15-20 sets per week of direct lateral delt work. It sounds like a lot, but the medial delt can handle it, and you will be surprised how much wider your shoulders look after two months.

Overhead press progression: Treat it like any compound lift. Linear progression for beginners (add 5 lbs per session until you stall), weekly progression for intermediates (add 2.5-5 lbs per week), and periodic overload for advanced lifters.

Lateral raise progression: Do not focus on weight. Focus on reps, tempo, and contraction quality. When you can do 15 clean reps with a 2-second eccentric and a pause at the top, add 2.5-5 pounds. Most people will do lateral raises with 15-30 pound dumbbells for years, and that is completely fine. The muscle does not care about the number on the dumbbell. It cares about tension and stimulus.