Rotator cuff exercise

[Squat Rack]

I'd like to strengthen my rotator cuff, what a quick set of exercises I can do like three times a week. I found this, but not sure if it's good:

Rotator Cuff Exercises -- familydoctor.org

[RacerBill]

Do you have existing shoulder issues?

Those exercises are pretty basic -- they're exactly what I was doing as rehab after I had shoulder surgery (acromioplasty). I progressed to other exercises with band resistance later on.

I hope UConnJulie chimes in here -- maybe shoot her a PM.

[umass]

Why the specific desire to strengthen your RC? Those exercises would work, but as RacerBill said those are very basic ones and unless you are trying to come back from an injury I would recomend something more general like the inside-out warm up which will do a lot more for your shoulder health than a few rotator cuff exercises thrown in at the end of you workout.

[Squat Rack]

The reason for the RC exercises is because I feel my shoulder is unstable, no actual injury or pain. Whenever I do pullups, both my shoulders click when initiating the move. I searched around and found that shoulder clicking might be due to instability of the joint. So I thought strengthening the RC my make my shoulder more stable.

Does this make sense??

[umass]

Originally Posted by Squat Rack

Does this make sense??

The fact that you are looking to create stability in the joint is good, but there is a lot more to it that just strengthening the rotator cuff. I would strongly recomend getting the Inside-out manual because it's a lot more thorough that any explaination I'll be able to write right now.
So that said you need to strengthen more than just your RC, for stability, so here is a suggestion; at the begginging of your workout warm up with the YTWL complex specified here after that do one set of 10-12 scap pushups. For the scap pushups basically you get into pushup position then just protract you scapula instead of doing a full pushup. That should be enough to help you stability and certainly helps in the warmup process.

[RedLefty]

Your thinking is a little bit backwards here. The shoulder is an inherently instable joint (the only ball and socket we've got in the body that works in such a huge range of motion), so in that sense, yes, you should do some things to keep it as stable as possible through the ROM.

Yet the RC is just a small part of this. The shoulder joint has many muscles that have to work together. Often any dysfunction or weakness is in other muscles, but you end up feeling pain in the RC area due to acromion pressure. But that's not the source of the problem. For example, if you have a really weak infraspinatus and/or teres minor, your scapula may not lay nice and flat and low. It might "wing" out a little, and since all those bones are connected, when the scapula wings out and up, everything else shifts. End result: RC pain. But you'd need to fix the scapular position, not the RC.

Edit: I just realized that umass said pretty much the same thing. Except he said it better and shorter. Dang.

[Mon]

4 Scapular movements...
- Retraction: squeeze shoulder blades together
- Protraction: opposite of retraction
- Elevation: shrugging shoulders up
- Depression: shoulders are down (opposite of elevation)

For the scapular movements according to cressey's article at t-nation, he said that the depressors should be balanced with the elevation and the retraction should be balanced with protraction, and external rotation with internal rotation TESTOSTERONE NATION - Shoulder Savers: Part I is the article a long with a list of exercises that are done within those movements.


By the way - The rotator cuff is formed by the tendons of four muscles: the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis.

according to exrx.net, only exercise that will work the supraspinatus is the "Front Lateral Raise" Dumbbell Front Lateral Raise

The exercises that work the infraspinatus and teres minor (those 2 muscles work together) is any external rotation exercise Back Exercise Menu Note that the teres minor is the target muscle for the Db upright external rotation and the infraspinatus is the target muscle for the lying DB and cable seated external rotation according to the site.

Exercise for the subscapularis are any internal rotation exercise and its also listed in the link I gave for the external rotation exercises (listed under it).


There you go! I am not sure if subscapularis (internal rotation) isolated exercises should also be done too because we (all) do enough internal rotation exercises already unless you don't do anything except for external rotation exercises. Am I right? or should these be isolated too? I am not sure about this. I can do lying internal rotation (dumbbells) way more reps than I can with lying external rotation (dumbbells) for example.

[bigDman]

YouTube - DieselCrew.com - Shoulder Rehab Protocol
or
TESTOSTERONE NATION - Cracking the Rotator Cuff Conundrum

they have both helped my shoulder a lot

[Mon]

Is this exercise "Skiers" safe (got it from the link bigdman posted)? YouTube - DieselCrew.com - Shoulder Rehab - Skiers I'm just making sure before I try this exercise.

[bigDman]

yea its fine. All of jimmy smith and the desiel crew stuff is pretty good