Rotator Cuff Exercises To Heal Shoulder Injuries And Build Your Shoulder Strength
Rotator Cuff Exercises Can Make A Big Difference To Enjoying Life!
The rotator cuff muscles make up part of the musculature of the shoulder girdle and often get missed in training routines. But as anyone who has ever injured this little group of muscles knows it is one of the most difficult injuries to get over. Here is what my husband Jonathan has to say -
"Hi there! For various reasons I have had quite a lot of injuries over the years - from motor bike accidents, to skateboard, martial arts and surfing accidents… but it has been a blast and thankfully the injuries have not been so severe that I have always been able to eventually recover.
Anyway, getting to the point - on a number of occasions I have damaged my shoulder joints, mainly through getting extremely frustrated (like the time I drove my car into the garage forgetting I had surfboards on the roof rack and jamming the boards between the garage door and the car roof and jumping out of the car and going ballistic trying to pull the boards out and severely stressing one of my shoulders as I attempted to yank them out).
Such damage to my shoulders resulted in bench presses becoming painful to perform. Fortunately I was reading articles by Stuart McRobert, who I consider to be one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to sensible muscle building workouts for the average person.
In his articles Stuart gave a rundown on how to protect and rehabilitate your rotator cuff. I immediately began following the recommended rotator cuff exercises (this would be getting on to ten years ago) and within days I was bench pressing pain free, and haven't looked back since then.
So, for anyone who has shoulder joint pain I strongly urge you to try such rotator cuff exercises. That also goes for those of you who are lifting heavy weights regularly, or who are putting a lot of strain on their shoulder joints because of their particular sport. These rotator cuff exercises will help enormously to prevent chronic injury and allow you to enjoy pain-free exercise."
What are the Rotator Cuff Muscles?
Ok, I hope Jonathan's brief story gives you some idea just how effective these rotator cuff exercises are. But, let's get back to understanding a little more the area of the body we are talking about -
Lying in-between the deltoid at the top of the shoulder and the bicep muscle at the top of the arm and connecting with tendons to the scapula or shoulder blade, the rotator cuff muscles are not the most impressive visually. In fact you wouldn't know they were there, but they are so important for the overall stability of the shoulder joint and because they are in a vulnerable position for injury it is well worth knowing a few tricks about how to keep them doing their job effectively and avoid injuring them by performing rotator cuff exercises.
What Is The Best Way To Train The Rotator Cuff?
The key to performing rotator cuff exercises is to use very, very, light weights. I can't emphasize this point enough. Because we train our deltoids using considerable poundage we might assume we can give the rotator cuff muscles similar treatment. Not so. To work the rotator cuff to begin with, use feather light weights only and increase the weights with the smallest graduation you can each time. Otherwise you risk injuring further the very muscles you are trying rehabilitate and strengthen as I now know from painful experience!
Preventing Rotator Cuff Injuries
To prevent injuring the rotator cuff in the first place Bench Press with care and meticulous form and avoid any exercises that require moving the shoulder joint through an extreme range of motion. Some of the more notorious weight training exercises that can cause shoulder impingement injuries and damage to the rotator cuff because of the extreme range of motion they use include press behind the neck, pull downs and pull ups behind the neck, upright row, pec deck, flys, and lateral raises (especially with the little finger above the thumb).
I have found that by substituting dumbbell over head press and front press for these exercises, using moderate weights, and only very gradually increasing the resistance I use, works well for safely training my shoulders.
If I already have a shoulder injury or my shoulder feels niggly I've learned from experience to resist trying to train around it. I get treatment for it from a good Osteopath or Chiropractor and then rest it before carrying on with shoulder training.
Correcting Rotator Cuff Injuries
One of the reasons the rotator cuff muscles are vulnerable to injury is the tendency for imbalances of strength between the exterior and interior rotator cuff muscles. To help strengthen and correct this and treat injuries try performing the L-Fly - a very effective exercise for shoulder joint problems.
How To Perform The L- Fly
There are many ways to perform the L- Fly: lying down, sitting or standing. The basic movement is to have your right hand out in front of you as if you were about to give someone a hand shake. While keeping your elbow pinned to your side, move your hand to the right then return your hand to the center. Now pick up a very light weight, do the same thing with the weight and perform 10-15 repetitions. Then swap arms. As you get used to the exercise add another set until you are doing a total of no more than three sets each side.
In a few weeks you may find that your have strengthened the muscles enough not to experience pain when you return to other shoulder and chest exercises like the bench press. Taking care of the rotator cuff may greatly reduce the likelihood of you experiencing a shoulder injury, or get you back on track quickly if you do. Not taking care of these muscles may mean that if you sustain a bad injury you may be unable to return to some of your favorite and most effective chest and shoulder exercises like the bench press.
Put in the mileage on the rotator cuff and reap the rewards of safe effective shoulder training.
Leave Rotator Cuff Exercises and go to Illustrated Stretching Exercises
Would you like to go to the Keys to a Healthy Lifestyle home page?
