Working on your external rotation will help keep your shoulders healthy, improve your posture, strengthen your infraspinatus muscle and improve overhead lifting and reaching overhead.
The bent-over lateral raise is a great isolation exercise which targets the posterior deltoids, giving the shoulders a complete look. It’s best to use light or moderate weights to effectively stimulate your delts as training too heavy is dangerous for your joints.
Too often are we having to sit in certain positions where our focus and posture start to get a bit.. lazy.
This posture correction guide is a great way to reset your sitting position and practice it. By being in this position, you will be less prone to hip tightness, back pain and shoulder/trap tightness.
We can’t really escape sitting at computers, in cars or just work that requires certain movements – we can however ensure we counter act it and make an effort to combat it!
One of the most common problems people get is shoulder pain. Sometimes all it takes is just the slightest, odd movement for something to be set off and thus niggled in the process. This exercise is a fantastic shoulder mobility and strengthening exercise.
This exercise is to help set your shoulder blade and give a bit of a balancing challenge. The stabiliser muscles of the shoulder have to kick in to keep your shoulder blade and humerus bone in place. A great warm up protocol for when working with shoulders!
In this progression, we throw in some extra challenge by having the swiss ball under us. By holding the body in correct alignment, you will also want to squeeze your glutes to help you stay on the ball.
If you are unable to get your head against the wall, try propping a towel that is rolled up enough to enable you have your head against it.
In this progression, the wall angel is done without any support under the hips. By holding the body in correct alignment, you will want to try and get your elbows against the wall and if possible your wrists too.
If you are unable to get your head against the wall, try propping a towel that is rolled up enough to enable you have your head against it.
While it would be AWESOME if you could flick out a set of adamantium claws at the end of this movement, the exercise is still pretty cool considering the benefits it has! Using a good solid set of your more underused back muscles, Wolverines will definitely help with your posture!
Just remember to keep your shoulders down and pinch those shoulder blades together at the end of the movement!
This exercise is deceptively challenging! You don’t need a lot of weight at all to complete it. Even a can of food in each hand will be enough for most people! If you have a theraband, you can loop it around a post and do the motion with it also.
If your traps really start to engage with this exercise, stop the exercise as the muscles we want to use have been fatigued and other muscles are taking over.
Such a simple exercise in movement and also just being able to do it. A 1kg dumbbell is often all that is needed. You can can even do this exercise with a can of beans if you wanted!
The key to this one is to make sure your movements are slow and smooth, otherwise other muscles will try and jump in and do the work!
Due to the posture we take when sitting at a computer, it is common for shoulders to roll forwards, our chest to become tight and our back to become tight and weak. Also included in this postural deviation is that our humerus bone can also rotate inwards. Given that when we sit at a computer, often we have our right hand on the mouse which means our right hand is on the outside of our elbow.. whereas on the left side, our elbow is often on the outside of our hand which is on the keyboard. It is often that it is our left shoulder that has problems because our humerus bone is used to being rotated inwards so that the left hand can be on the keyboard. When this happens, the muscles that externally rotate the humerus bone become weak and stop doing their job.
This exercise is designed to get them firing again and if you have this one prescribed to you – DON’T GIVE UP DOING THEM. Yes they can feel like you aren’t doing much but let’s put it this way.. the muscles in question are small… so therefore the amount of weight and movement required isn’t going to be much either.
Keep at it because if you don’t get this issue sorted, you are in for a world of problems later on!
The pull up is such a strong and versatile exercise. You don’t need any real equipment other than something above your head and able to be hung onto.
This is a simple yet effective exercise that helps with learning and improving external rotation. The key to this exercise is not going heavy. Your external rotator muscles aren’t big so they don’t require big weights being thrown around. Light yet precise movements are key for this.