Rotator Cuff Excercises?

Hey,
Just wonderin what the best cuff excercises are, and what rep scheme has worked for you guys. I want to strengthen it up for better bench results and to prevent injury. Is it best to work em the same day as bench? The only excercises i know are standing with the cable and lying on your side with a dumbell (I hate that one).

Do a search of this site for “Cuban rotation”. That is a great exercise.
Also, I do an exercise that I think of as “empting the water bottles” cause I forgot real name. You hold your arms parallel to the floor at about a 45 deg angle from your body, then rotated them so that the palms are facing out, then raise and lower your arms. Hope that explanation allows you can to visualize that exercise.

i am not gonna swear, but i am pretty sure that siff likes overhead squats to improve the health of the shoulder joint

Hi, Search for Poliquin’s articly “Achieving Structural Balance” where he has pictures of a guy doing external rotations, a VERY effective rotator cuff exercise. Personally, I benched at least 5 pounds more on my singles after doing those.

I do a set of Cuban twists at the end of my two upper body workouts. I do one warm-up then the work set. I keep the rep range pretty high–15-20. Since I started doing this a month ago, my left shoulder seems to hurt less.

Years ago I got a little too gung-ho and did some damage to my RHS rotator cuff.Part of my rehab was using the `Shoulderhorn’, that I ordered through an ad in MM2K.It worked wonders!I still use it,along with cuban rotations.You can do a similar movement unilaterally by resting your elbow at shoulder height while sitting sideways on a preacher bench.Holding a dumbell,externally rotate your arm up and down with the elbow resting on the pad.I agree with the others,work your RC and you will likely notice improvements on your bench,and your shoulders will feel a lot more stable in general.

when and where in ur workout does everyone workout their rotator cuff, is it okay to do a few hours after a chest workout?

Irontank,when I first started working my rotator cuff muscles I used to work them at home,seperate from my chest workouts.It worked just fine.Nowadays I slot them in at the end of my chest workouts.Either way works,main thing is to just go ahead and reap the benefits of training these often neglected muscles.

Were can I find an illustration of your overhead squats?
I would love to give these a try!.. (Joey Z.)

I work my rotator cuffs every-other workout. The exercise I use, I consider part of my warm-up routine. (For a warm-up I do a couple sets of exercises to work every muscle group with either a 5 or 10 pound plate in each hand.) At the end of my warm up, I’ll grab some dumbbells to do the exercise as follows. Start with your arms straight out to the side and parallel to the floor and lower your forearms, bending at the elbows until your upper and lower arms are at a 90 degree angle. Your plams should be facing behind you. To start the exercise, rotate your shoulders ONLY so that your fists are pointing straight up and your palms are facing to your front, that’s a 180 degree rotation. Lower back down and repeat. I feel that a weight is too heavy if you can’t get more than 8 reps to a working set, and too light if you can get more than 15. 3 sets should be good. Remember, rotator cuffs aren’t like quads, you don’t want to overdo it.

basically you full squat, with your elbows locked overhead, holding the barbell. you can look at pretty much any OL site like worldclasscoachingllc and look up pictures of people doing a snatch. An overhead squat is really just the end part of a snatch. I am not that good at them yet. I started off about a month ago at 95 lbs for several reps. I can now do 135 for about 4 or 5. They’re hard at first.

Thanks “dman”-for your prompt reply!..I’ll give it a try tomorrow.
I love to do what evryone else isn’t .I tried the external rotation movement “Lyova” was talking about 2 hours ago, and would advise everyone
else to do the same.It’s in issue #52…It sorta turns your knee into a shoulder horn device.