Deltoid Lateral Raise
The deltoid lateral raise is an isolation exercise in which you lift dumbbells out to the sides until the arms are parallel to the ground. The NSW guide lists it in the upper body exercises and adds a specific instruction: raise the arms parallel to the ground but no higher.
How to Perform It
Stand with a dumbbell in each hand at your sides, elbows slightly bent and palms facing in. With a tall posture and the trunk still, lift the arms out to the sides in a wide arc until they are parallel to the ground. The guide says to raise the arms parallel to the ground but no higher, which keeps the load on the deltoid and off the shoulder joint. Lower under control to the start. Use light weight; the leverage is long and the deltoid is a small muscle. The prescription is one set of 8 to 12 reps with a weight that cannot be lifted more than 8 to 12 times with proper technique.
Why It Matters for BUD/S
The lateral raise builds the side of the deltoid, the part of the shoulder that the bench press and military press do not fully target. A shoulder that is strong all the way around handles the varied loads of BUD/S better: overhead boats, side-loaded logs, hours of arm recovery during swims, and hundreds of push-ups. The guide gives injury prevention as a core reason for strength work, and the shoulder is one of the joints most exposed during selection. Because the raise is a light isolation movement, it fits the guide's rule of avoiding high-skill exercises without a coach; the form is simple and the risk is low.
Where It Sits in the 26-Week Plan
Lateral raises are done in the Upper/Core sessions on Monday and Friday. Within the session the guide recommends 8 to 12 exercises, one working set each, moving quickly between stations. The raise generally sits after the heavier presses and pulls, since it needs little setup and light weight. Progress is slow on this exercise by design: a small increase in dumbbell weight is a large increase in difficulty, so many candidates stay on the same load for several weeks and add reps toward 12 before moving up. The guide's allowance for an occasional lighter set of 15 to 20 reps suits the lateral raise well.
Lead with the elbows, not the hands, and stop at shoulder height. If you have to shrug or swing, the dumbbells are too heavy.
Related Terms
Upper body strength training in the NSW preparation program targets the major pulling and pushing muscle groups through compound barbell and dumbbell exercises. These sessions complement the calisthenics work (push-ups, pull-ups) by building the raw strength that supports higher-rep endurance performance.
The shoulder press, also called the military press, is an overhead pressing exercise performed with a barbell, dumbbells, or a machine. It builds the deltoids and triceps and sits in the NSW guide's upper body exercise list as the main overhead pushing movement.
The upright row is a vertical pulling exercise in which you pull a barbell or dumbbells up the front of the body toward the chin, leading with the elbows. It trains the upper trapezius, deltoids, and biceps and appears in the NSW guide's upper body exercise list.
Push-ups are a foundational upper-body calisthenics exercise and one of the five scored events in the Physical Screening Test (PST). In BUD/S preparation, push-up training follows a progressive volume approach where daily targets scale based on the candidate's most recent PST max.
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