Meh, lateral raises are overrated in my opinion. You want massive shoulders? Pile on some weight and focus on pressing movements. Just like other muscle groups, the key to mass is heavy, compound movements, and the shoulders are no exception.
Here's my current shoulder routine:
Front lateral raises - 5-6 sets: I change this up frequently, sometimes I'll use dumbbells, sometimes a cambered barbell, sometimes cables, underhand grip, overhand grip, etc, etc.
Seated machine presses - 4-5 sets: at this point my shoulders are warmed up and ready to go so I jump right into heavy weight
My next movement is usually something different every week (4 sets), but it's always a pressing movement. Sometimes I'll do seated dumbbell presses, one arm presses in a smith machine, behind the neck presses, standing overhead presses, etc. I always keep these as heavy as possible.
Upright barbell rows (Charles Glass style with a wide grip) - 4 sets (heavy): I like the wide grip, it allows me to use heavier weight and it's easier on the rotator cuff.
Shrugs - 5 sets: Up until this year I've never trained traps directly but my New Years resolution was to improve my traps so I started doing some targeted training. I never go too heavy on these and I always focus on a complete range of motion and keep very strict form. I keep the rep range in the 12-15 neighborhood and I rarely go above 225lbs. In my opinion this is one of the most misused exercises in the gym. I see guys stroking their own egos with 4-5-6 plates per side executing these with shit form and they have absolutely no traps to speak of...
Face pulls with a rope - 4 sets: I do this on a cable crossover machine and I set the pulley at the highest setting so I'm pulling at a slight downward angle. The key to this exercise is tight form. You want to pinch your scapula together prior to starting the exercise and keep a slight bend in your elbows at the beginning of the movement. This will keep continuous tension on the rear delts and take a lot of the bicep out of the movement.
My last movement targets the rear delts again. It varies from week to week depending on what I feel like doing. It's 4 sets and can be reverse flyes in a pec deck machine, or dumbbell rear laterals laying face down on an incline bench, or rear laterals on a cable machine. It's some type of rear lateral movement. You get the idea.
