Jeff Cavaliere

What the external rotators will do is they'll keep it centered so that as you raise, instead of it migrating up, it's countering the force of the deltoid.

So staying in the middle and it basically can rotate and stay right in the middle where it has to be.

You're not getting this migration or pinching going on.

So that's the real function of the rotator cuff is to maintain a more centralized position with less of this pinching.

you really have to focus on when we're talking about avoiding shoulder issues the biggest thing you can do is start training the rotator cuff not stop training the rotator cuff and if you're doing a lot of heavy pressing or a lot of work with exercises that tend to internally rotate your shoulders now then you have to do even more work for the rotator cuff to try to maintain that balance if you're doing all kinds of dealt work you're never doing it rotator cuff work you're just creating more and more of that imbalance so

I think the biggest thing you can do is maintain mobility of the shoulder, mobility of the shoulder girdle itself, so the scapula being able to rotate, and then having strength of the muscles of that shoulder girdle, which are the rotator cuff.

Those are the three main things you can do to keep that shoulder functioning well and staying out of this domination of internal rotation with elevation.

What's your favorite external rotator exercise?

My favorite is just simply attaching a band to a stable.

It could be a stair, like a stair post, or it could be in a gym, just a rack, right?

And you step away, you put the band in your hand,

From the anchor point, you're going to step out until there's good tension on the band.

If you were to let it relax, it would pull your hand towards your chest, towards your belly.

You externally rotate to about back to neutral or a little bit beyond if you can.

A little bit beyond your torso.

Yeah, it won't be on your torso if you can.

It's even better if you have that range of motion.

Sometimes people don't.

And when you get it there, you, again, hold it, right?

You hold it for a second just so you know that you actually muscled it out there and you didn't just swing it out there.