Rotator Cuff Strengthening | Side Lying External Rotation

How To Complete the Side Lying External Rotation Drill

Rotator Cuff Strengthening

Most of us have injured or heard someone who's injured their rotator cuffs. This is a combination of 4 shoulder muscles that not only stabilize the shoulder, but provide mobility to our shoulder blades as well. It is crucial for your shoulders to be positioned well in your shoulder blades to prevent injury from the daily beating this joint gets. This is a super important exercise to strengthen your rotator cuff muscles and centralize your arm bone within the scapula!

Exercise Lie on your side with a pillow under your head to rest your neck. Place your top arm by your side, and have your elbow bent at 90 degrees, with a weight in hand. Slowly twist your arm so that you are raising your hand towards the sky, without moving your elbow.

Time Do this for 5-8 reps and repeat 3 times.

Video Transcript

Some people prefer to read and we've got you covered!

Mitch Starkman:

Hey guys. Welcome to The Movement Library where we've compiled mobility, strength and corrective exercises so that you can move like you mean it.

All right guys, we're demonstrating how to do some shoulder strengthening exercises for the back side of the shoulder, we call this Side Lying Shoulder External Rotation. Really important for centering that shoulder in socket and getting you good shoulder stability and strength.

So, to do this you're going to lay on your side. This is probably one of the more important exercises most people should be doing and supplementing into their strength training programs or really if you have shoulder pain and you're sitting forward like this, to get your shoulder back. So, laying on your side just like this, your hand can be a support, you can have a pillow under your head, be comfortable, get in your spa mode. First thing I want you to do is take your shoulder blade back. A lot of people with this will keep their shoulder anteriorly tilted or kind of forward position like this, which is a no go. So think about that shoulder going back into a good position, tilting that shoulder blade backwards. All right? I'll show you this in sitting afterwards, but tilting it backwards. And then getting your weight down here.

And what you're going to do is keeping your elbow at 90 degrees, you're up here, your shoulder is tilted backwards, we're going to rotate up into this external rotated position and slowly come back down and back up. Back down and back up. Don't go crazy with this. Most people don't need more 10 pounds for this at most, start with two, see how you do and rotate that. Again, not shot forwards like this.

So for this exercise, I'll show you guys again, that shoulder blade is position is … Don't be this, out like that, right? You don't want to be doing it this way. You want your shoulder to be tilted backwards and down, not pulled back, just activated down, and you're supposed to feel the position to really feel it, and you should feel it in the back area here of the shoulder, not in the front and not down the arm. If you feel it in those places, recheck your position.

Leave a comment below, we're happy to help, okay? So if you guys do have any questions, yeah, feel free to leave 'em down below. Like us if you like it. Go down and hit the ham on that leg button down there, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and of course, move like you mean it. Thanks a lot guys. Hope it helps.