The Egyptian lateral raise is a one-arm lateral raise done leaning away from a support. You hold the frame of a cable machine with one hand, let your body hang out to the side so the working shoulder is the farthest point from it, and raise the other arm, cable in hand, out to the side until the elbow reaches shoulder height. The lean tilts the whole body, so the arm travels through a longer arc before it gets there.
Nobody is credited with inventing or naming it. None of the written guides we read explains the “Egyptian”, and a web search on October 7, 2026 found only guesses. Brolic lists it as Single-Arm Lateral Raise (Cable), with “Egyptian Lateral Raise”, “Leaning Lateral Raise (Cable)” and “Leaning Cable Lateral Raise” as aliases, and logs it as a one-sided exercise: one set covers both sides, and reps are counted per side.
Muscles worked
Brolic tags the lateral deltoids as the primary muscle, with the anterior deltoids and posterior deltoids as secondary. Karim, the coach in the second video, teaches it as a side-delt exercise and little else. Mike Julom, a certified trainer at This Is Why I’m Fit, names the front and middle of the deltoid and wants the traps and core to stay quiet.
No study measures the leaning version: a PubMed search on October 7, 2026 for “leaning lateral raise” and “Egyptian lateral raise” returned nothing. The nearest trial, by Larsen, Wolf, Schoenfeld and colleagues (2025), had 24 trained lifters do upright lateral raises for eight weeks, cable on one arm and dumbbell on the other, and found no difference in lateral deltoid growth. Nothing establishes that the cable, or the lean, builds more muscle than a plain lateral raise.
Set the lean
Low pulley, single handle, stand side-on. Both demonstrations use a low pulley with the cable running across the front of the body to the outside hand, while the inside hand holds the machine’s upright. Vidur Saini at Fitness Volt grabs the support at about chest height.
Bring the feet in and lean away until the support arm is straight. Terry Ramos at Generation Iron puts the feet together close to the support and extends the holding arm fully; Saini does the same and treats the straight support arm as the point of the exercise. Julom’s test is that the torso ends up farther from the support than the feet.
Soft knees, braced middle, shoulders back. Karim keeps a slight bend in the knees, tenses the stomach slightly and pulls the shoulders back to hold posture; Ramos keeps the spine neutral.
Raise
Start with the knuckles pointing at the floor. Karim lowers the handle until the knuckles face straight down. Saini stops the descent before the handle reaches the start so the shoulder stays under tension.
Raise until the elbow is level with the shoulder. Karim’s finish is the elbow roughly at shoulder height, with a slight bend in the elbow kept for the whole set; Saini’s is the arm parallel to the floor. Julom has the elbow lead every rep and finishes with the little finger highest.
Lower slowly. Renaissance Periodization’s clip carries one cue: quality and control on the lowering, all the way from top to bottom. Julom lowers more slowly than he raised; Ramos asks for slow, deliberate negatives.
Finish the reps on one side, turn around, swap hands and repeat.
Versus the standing lateral raise
| Dumbbell lateral raise | Cable lateral raise, upright | Egyptian lateral raise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arms | Both at once | One at a time | One at a time |
| Torso | Upright | Upright | Leaning away from a support |
| Resistance | Dumbbell hanging straight down | Cable from a low pulley | Cable from a low pulley, body tilted away from it |
Ramos’ claim for the lean is a longer range and more time under tension; Julom says cables suit it particularly well, though a dumbbell, plate or kettlebell also works. Larsen’s upright comparison found cable and dumbbell equal for growth; nobody has tested the lean.
Logging
Brolic logs Single-Arm Lateral Raise (Cable) as a one-sided exercise: one logged set covers both arms, and the rep count is per arm, so 12 reps means 12 left and 12 right. Enter the weight on the stack, and note whether you leaned (the Egyptian version) or stood upright, because the same entry holds both. If one arm stops short, note which one and how many reps it got rather than averaging. The free workout log holds the note, and the weekly set tally shows how these sets add to your shoulder work.
Common questions
How far should I lean? No coach here gives an angle. Saini and Ramos lean until the support arm is straight; Julom until the torso is farther from the support than the feet. Lean that far and no farther.
Dumbbell or cable? Julom allows a dumbbell, plate or kettlebell and prefers the cable. Brolic’s entry is the cable version, so log a dumbbell leaning raise under its dumbbell entry with “leaning” in the note.
My traps take over. Karim keeps the shoulders back and braced; Julom keeps the elbow leading and the chin up. Stop the raise at shoulder height, lighten the stack, and if the shoulder hurts, stop; pain is not a cue.
Sources and method
- Renaissance Periodization: Leaning Cable Lateral Raise — the demonstration and its eccentric cue; captions.
- Karim Fitness Coach: Egyptian Lateral Raises Tutorial — target, bottom and top of the range, elbow bend and posture cues; automatic captions.
- Mike Julom, ACE CPT, This Is Why I’m Fit (2021) — the lean test, leading elbow, little-finger finish, lowering and equipment options.
- Vidur Saini, Fitness Volt — chest-height grip, straight support arm, parallel finish and partial descent.
- Terry Ramos, Generation Iron (2024) — feet together, extended support arm, the range claim and neutral spine.
- Larsen, Wolf, Schoenfeld et al. (2025) — dumbbell versus cable lateral raises, upright, not leaning.
- Brolic catalog — name, aliases, one-sided logging and muscle tags.
The lean, the range and the tempo are coaching starting points from the sources cited, not optima from a trial, and no growth claim is made for the lean over an upright raise.
