I recently co-authored a Women’s Health article looking at an unusual shoulder exercise called the kettlebell archer lateral raise and whether it offers anything different from the traditional lateral raise.
The exercise uses a resistance band with a kettlebell suspended from the middle.
Rather than simply raising two dumbbells out to the sides, you move through an alternating ‘archer’ motion while controlling both the band and the suspended kettlebell.
While the movement still primarily targets the deltoids, particularly the lateral delts, the unstable nature of the kettlebell makes control an important part of the exercise.
When I tried the movement myself, one of the things that stood out was the immediate feedback it gives you.
Move too quickly or use too much weight and the kettlebell starts swinging and bouncing. Slow things down and the movement becomes considerably smoother.
This is also why simply adding more weight isn’t necessarily the goal.
Using a lighter kettlebell, maintaining tension between repetitions and controlling the movement can make the exercise surprisingly challenging without needing to continually increase the load.
In the article, I also discussed five potential benefits of the variation, including maintaining tension through the deltoids, encouraging greater control, exposing excessive momentum and making lighter weights more challenging.
Importantly, I wouldn’t describe the exercise as inherently better than a conventional lateral raise. We don’t currently have evidence to support that claim.
Different exercises suit different people, and factors such as mobility, injury history, individual anatomy and simply how an exercise feels can all influence exercise selection.
For someone already comfortable with conventional lateral raises who wants to experiment with a different stimulus, however, the kettlebell archer lateral raise is an interesting variation to try.
You can read the full article and my contribution in Women’s Health here.
