What the Rotator Cuff is, the consequences of neglecting it and how to strengthen it
I hear a lot of people mention the rotator cuff, but does anyone really know what it actually does? If you bench press a lot in the gym or work out your deltoids considerably, but neglect your rotator cuff, you very likely are setting yourself up for painful shoulder injuries down the road like impingements, bursitis and rotator cuff tears. In this post, I’m going to briefly describe the rotator cuff and why it is so important to strengthen it.
What the Rotator Cuff Does
The rotator cuff plays a big part in stabilizing the shoulder joint by depressing the humerus (upper arm bone) and compressing it against a depression in your scapula called the glenoid fossa. Think of the top part of your humerus taking on the shape of a ball, with the glenoid fossa being a socket. So now you can picture a ball rolling around in a socket, which is why the glenohumeral joint is called a ball and socket joint.
The 4 Muscles of the Rotator Cuff
Subscapularis internally rotates your arm, supraspinatus assists your deltoid in bringing your arm up sideways, while infraspinatus and teres minor externally rotate your arm. Supraspinatus is the main rotator cuff muscle that compresses your humerus into the socket, while the other 3 rotator cuff muscles depress the humerus.
Why is it important for me to have a strong rotator cuff when I am benching?
Well, I’m glad you asked! The rotator cuff plays a big role in stabilizing your shoulder. When you bench press with heavy weight, you are placing a great deal of stress onto your shoulder joints. If your rotator cuff muscles are weak, you may very well be setting yourself up for a shoulder injury, if not a full out dislocation if you are unlucky enough. If your rotator cuff muscles are strong, it may be possible for you to blast through previous plateaus in your bench and lift more weight since a lack of stabilization is no longer holding you back.
Why do I have to strengthen my rotator cuff when I am already working out my deltoids?
Yes, your deltoid muscles do act to move your shoulder, but it is important to maintain a proper balance in strength between your rotator cuff muscles and the deltoids. Your deltoid acts to bring your humeral head superiorly, or upwards. If your rotator cuff muscles are weak and are not depressing the humeral head enough or compressing it enough into the socket, your deltoid muscle will dominate with the humeral head upwards motion. This can lead to shoulder impingement of the biceps tendon, supraspinatus tendon, subacromial bursitis or a torn labrum. None of these are fun to have due to a muscular imbalance of the deltoid muscle and rotator cuff.
What can I do to strengthen my rotator cuff?
I have 3 exercises I like to do and I’ll break them down to target each rotator cuff muscle.
Strengthening infraspinatus and teres minor.
These muscles do external rotation of the shoulder. To strengthen these, I like to hold a 5lb weight (believe me, 5lbs is plenty for the rotator cuff muscles), bend my elbow 90 degrees and press it against a wall in front of me. Then I slowly lower my arm inward, resisting gravity as I go down until my arm is parallel with the floor. Then I come back up. I do 2 sets of twelve each arm and follow this for all rotator cuff exercises.
Strengthening supraspinatus.
I hold a 5lb dumbbell in each hand for this exercise. Now, if raising the dumbbell out to the side is 0 degrees, while out directly in front of you is 90 degrees, you want to raise the dumbbell in the middle of those 2 positions, or 45 degrees. Then from this position, raise your arms upwards until they are level with your shoulders. Then slowly lower them back to starting position against gravity. While doing this movement, make sure you are holding the dumbbells with your thumbs pointed up! Doing an upward shoulder motion with your thumbs pointed down is fraying at your rotator cuff tendons and will cause shoulder impingement. So remember, thumbs up!
Strengthening subscapularis.
Here, I like to do a cable exercise where I position the cable so that I can comfortably move it towards my body with my elbow bent 90 degrees. So I pull it in towards my body, then slowly let it come back to its original position.
P.S. I would save the rotator cuff exercises until you’ve done your heavy lifting. If your rotator cuff muscles are fatigued, you won’t be able to bench press as much weight.
So there you have it, I just instructed you on what the rotator cuff is, what it does, why it is so important and how to strengthen it. Now go out there and work out those rotator cuffs!