NIFS Healthy Living Blog

Shoulder Care: The Rotator Cuff

In this post I want to go over the basic anatomy of the rotator cuff, the functions of its parts, and some exercises that can help strengthen your shoulder stabilizers to keep your shoulders healthy. The shoulder tends to be a problem with not only athletes but in the general population as well. The shoulder is one of the most mobile joints we have, so when we are working up the kinetic chain we want to work on its overall stability so that we can protect it from injury.

Anatomy of the Shoulder

First and foremost, the rotator cuff is a group of tendons and muscles in the shoulder connecting the upper arm (humerus) to the shoulder blade (scapula). The rotator cuff’s main purpose is to hold the head of the humerus in the glenoid (shoulder) cavity. Below are the rotator cuff muscles and their main functions.

The muscles in the rotator cuff include the following:    

• Supraspinatus: Abducts the shoulder in the first 30 degrees.
• Infraspinatus: External rotation.
• Teres minor: External rotation.
• Subscapularis: Internal rotation.

 You can remember these using the acronym SITS.

Exercises for Shoulder Stability

Now that you have a basic understanding of the shoulder’s anatomy and functions, let’s go over exercises that help improve strength and overall stability of the shoulder.

Supraspinatus (Abduction)

• Empty Cans
• Incline Bench-Ys (Thumbs Up)

Infraspinatus and Teres Minor (External Rotation/ER)

• Wall Slides―Active ER
• Incline Bench-Ls (Row to ER)

Subscapularis (Internal Rotation/IR)

• Band IR

Grip Strength and Stability

Performing exercises that challenge your grip strength is another great way to improve the stability in the shoulder. These exercises target the entire shoulder instead of focusing on one muscle. Examples here include KB bottoms up variations such as half kneeling single-arm bottoms-up press or bottoms up walk.

Programming

As a strength coach, I deal with overhead and throwing athletes on a daily basis, so keeping the shoulders healthy is a big part of my job. My goal is always to keep the shoulders healthy and strong instead of waiting until they are completely out of competition due to injury. Shoulder care exercises are not just for throwing athletes. These exercises can benefit all athletes and should be integrated into your weekly training program.

The biggest concern that I deal with on a daily basis is fighting overuse injuries. Overuse injuries account for most of the shoulder injuries, and so I have to find a balance to keep their shoulders healthy. My pitchers are required to do some sort of shoulder care each day that they are in. This past year my pitchers were doing mostly supraspinatus strengthening and everyone else did more external and internal rotation exercises.

Depending on what is in your workout for the day, you can complete these either before or after the strength portion of your workout. If you have pressing, pulling, or any overhead exercises, they should be done first to activate the shoulder musculature to reduce the chance for injury. If it is more of a lower-body workout, you can finish your workout with some shoulder care exercises.

Hopefully you now have a good understanding of the importance of shoulder care, the benefits of strengthening your rotator cuff, and how to implement these exercises so that your shoulders can feel better than ever.

This blog was written by trainer Josh Jones, MS, CSCS, USAW, NIFS Center for Athletic Performance. Read more about the NIFS bloggers here.

The Core Exercises That Athletes Usually Do

Before I go into what athletes need to be doing, here is a look at what most athletes do on a regular basis. Following is a list of movements and exercises that coincide with each other. If you notice, in each of these, the core acts as a primary mover. Is this really a smart way to train?

• Trunk flexion–sit-up variations, crunch variations
• Trunk extension–back extensions
• Trunk lateral flexion–side bends
• Trunk rotation–medicine ball (MB) twists and throws

When athletes compete in the field of play, do you ever see them hunch over similar to a sit-up? I don’t. Do you ever see an athlete do side bends? I don’t. I do think that MB rotational tosses do have their place in programming, but I think a greater emphasis needs to be on preventing movement from occurring rather than using the core as a primary mover.

A Smarter Approach to Training the Core

Here is a smarter approach to training the core. I believe that enhancing core stability is a much smarter way to train. The five branches of core stability include anti-extension, anti-lateral flexion, anti-rotation, hip flexion with a neutral spine, and anti-flexion. Let’s break down each component and give you practical examples for the next time you’re in the gym.

Anti-extension: The goal of anti-extension exercises is to resist extension through the lumbar spine. This is probably the most poorly executed out of the five categories. Most would improve by simply completing push-ups and planks with a neutral spine. As you develop strength in this area, you can progress to rollout variations. The most important thing is to keep the spine neutral and not allow it to hyperextend.

Anti-lateral flexion: Whenever you walk into the gym, you are bound to see someone with one dumbbell or kettlebell in their hand and doing side bends. This is one of those exercises where you are sore for days and you think that it’s a great exercise. Am I right? But the goal here is to actually resist lateral flexion or side bending. So if we can’t do side bends, what do we do? Try holding a dumbbell in one hand for an extended period of time without allowing side bending. You can progress to a walking suitcase carry or waiter’s carry, holding the weight in one hand while extended overhead. You can also try suitcase deadlifts. Lock your spine into place and don’t let it move!

Anti-rotation: As I have already mentioned, I still believe in medicine ball rotational exercises, especially for rotational sports, but I have put a greater emphasis on resisting rotation through the core and lumbar spine. The exercise that I use most often for this category is the Pallof Press. The most important coaching cue here is to lock the core down and not allow any rotation through your spine.

Hip flexion with a neutral spine: This is exactly what it sounds like. While keeping your back straight, you flex the hips. Examples here include stability ball jack knife, TRX Crunch, Valslide Hip Flexion (mountain climber), and even hanging leg raises.

Anti-flexion: Finally, anti-flexion is the last component to core training. This component is used a lot of times without even programming for it. Any time you do any type of deadlift variation or squat variation, you are training anti-flexion. The goal here is to just resist flexion, or bending, through the spine.

Programming Core Training into Your Workout

Now that you know and understand the different types of exercises that can improve your performance the most, let’s talk about where to put it into your program. Some people think core training should be done at the beginning and others think it should be completed at the end of your workout. Here is my response. I think you should do it at the beginning and use it as a branch-off of your mobility/corrective or activation work. After all, it would be smart to activate your core before you work out since you will be using it for a lot of your different movements.

Lastly, how much core should you do each day? The way that I program our workouts is simply taking one to three of those categories and picking one exercise for each. Make sure that you do each one the same amount to ensure a balanced program. If you choose only one exercise, you could do three sets or so. But if you choose to do more than one exercise, anywhere from one to three sets would be sufficient.

Hopefully you have a better understanding of why core stability is important. Give this a try and you will soon find out that preventing movement from occurring will improve your overall athletic performance.

Need more help with Core training? Try one of these great group fitness classes designed specifically to target the core. Core and More, Extreme Core, and Les Mills Core®.

This blog was written by trainer Josh Jones, MS, CSCS, USAW, NIFS Center for Athletic Performance.