Rotator Cuff Exercise

is it true that exercising the rotator cuff will help with posture and slouched shoulders?
if so, what kind of exercise works best? standing cable? standing db? or lying db?

While all of the exercises that you listed would have potential merit, the real key is to make sure that you have proper thoracic mobility and scapular stability before starting to incorporate more direct rotator cuff work.

If you’re rounded over and your scapulae are not positioned/functiong optimally or at least somewhat close, the direct rotator cuff will not have the same impact.

If your shoulders are slouched it’s more likely a larger muscle imbalance between your chest and back muscles. Read up on Eric Cressey’s shouldersavers if you’re really interested in direct shoulder work and such and also look up Neanderthal No More and read all the parts.

Be truthful with yourself about them and do what you need to and it’ll help a lot with your posture/balance. I thought my posture was fine because all of my friends sucked so bad but I started doing some rows every workout for a few weeks and I could see my shoulders starting to set back more.

So now I’m just balancing out chest and back work and even just the slight posture change has improved my frame and performance.

For posture, balanced technique correct lifting is best.

there are so many different variations of rows…which ones work best for good posture? i feel like the seated cable row doesn’t do much for me…

I think a row to the neck is best for posture. I may be wrong. Just about any row where you don’t cheat will be best, since you want to really pull your shoulder blades back to get a positive effect. In time your body will just be like that (or that’s the plan)

Overall i think as my dip/bench gets overtake by my pullup/row (no accident) i feel my posture improves. So any small step towards that is awesome.

Standing BB rows to the neck is a vertical movement. Not that that’s bad, but to balance your horizontal plane, you want to do horizontal movements :stuck_out_tongue: Seated rows to about the sternum is pretty much a direct scapular retraction lineup. Go lower and the lower lats get hit more. Go higher and it starts to work traps. You want to try and shoot for as near “opposite” as you can.

I think dannyrat was refering to seated rope rows to the neck. As mentioned by Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson in a few of their article about shoulder health and posture correction. It really hits your external rotator and scupular stabilizers.

[quote]Skrussian wrote:
Standing BB rows to the neck is a vertical movement. Not that that’s bad, but to balance your horizontal plane, you want to do horizontal movements :stuck_out_tongue: Seated rows to about the sternum is pretty much a direct scapular retraction lineup. Go lower and the lower lats get hit more. Go higher and it starts to work traps. You want to try and shoot for as near “opposite” as you can. [/quote]