What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today we're going to talk about the rotator cuff, and more importantly the top five myths
when it comes to training this muscle group.
Right off the bat, let's start with myth number one.
Is it the muscle group, or is it the muscle?
You see, people call this a single muscle.
As a matter of fact, my grandfather – God rest his soul – he called it the "rotor
cuff", and then other people call it the "rotator cup".
To clarify, it's the rotator cuff, and it's four muscles that contribute to the function
of this entity.
Now, I will tell you this: we're going to ignore one of them.
The reason why is going to lead to the fact that we're going to talk about the other three,
and we're breaking out the muscle markers to do that.
Now, why?
Because it makes it really easy to understand the function when you see them back here.
To understand, really, even where these are in the first place all you've got to do is
start with the black line here, and that is the spine of the scapula.
It really names itself.
Everything is really easy once you have that grasped.
You can literally grasp it because you can reach over the back of your shoulder and grab
onto that bone, and hook your fingers under, and you know you're on the spine.
From there, if you just roll your fingers upward, just a little bit until you roll off
that bone, now you're on the supraspinatus.
"Supra" meaning above, "spinatus" meaning spine.
You're right above that spine.
There you go.
There's the supraspinatus.
Now this is the muscle that gets all the attention because it's the one that tends to get pinched
the most because it's the closest here to the shoulder joint.
So when we raise our arm up it can be pinched right here.
Which they call "impingement".
So now the next one, the infraspinatus.
Grab that spine again, and you roll downward.
Here's the big green area here.
That muscle is the same thing, again, right below.
They're both acting to externally rotate the shoulder, okay?
The third one, the terres minor, starts a little bit lower on the scapula and it rolls
all the way up, again, to the back of your arm so that it too can also influence external
rotation.
So now, what is the one that I didn't talk about?
That leads me to myth number two.
"You should train the whole rotator cuff".
You've got to work internal rotation, and external rotation.
Well, the one I left out is the subscapularis, and it sits inside – I can't even draw this
one for you, guys.
This sits inside my shoulder blade on the inside, and it actually internally rotates
the shoulder.
Well, here's the problem with that.
We spend so much time getting work on our internal rotators that that's what's causing
the problem in the first place.
If you're somebody that's a rehab candidate right now because you've already injured your
rotator cuff, likely it's because it was too weak and being dominated by the internal rotation.
So now what you have is this great imbalance.
So what do we see people do all the time?
They come here, they grab the band, and they do this.
I'll show you from here, actually.
You can see it better.
They do this.
Internal rotation all the time.
All day long.
Now, why?
Again, it feels good, number one, because this is strong already.
Doing internal rotation doesn't really hurt.
But try and flip that around and do external rotation here, that way.
That's weak because those muscles that externally rotate the shoulder never get enough attention.
So you ditch the internal rotation because you're only contributing more to the problem
that you already have.
Thirdly, the next myth we talk about is "You don’t really even have to train this area
because it gets all the work it needs just from your regular training".
That's wrong.
You don’t get enough external rotation in.
The external rotation component of very, very few exercises is usually dominated by the
fact that a lot of other muscles – most importantly your delts – are really dominating
those movements.
So I like to do a high pull, where I pull the dumbbells up, and I externally rotate
my arms as I go up.
As opposed to an upright row.
However, even on that exercise the delts are definitely doing a lot more of the work, and
they're also contributing to this dominate imbalance between the deltoid strength, versus
the rotator cuff.
So unless you're really focusing on doing the rotator cuff specifically, you're not
ever going to train it enough and you need to specifically hit it with exercises to do
that.
Now, number four: the empty can exercise.
Remember when I just talked about exercises?
How many times have you been told to do this?
Maybe you're doing it right now.
If you are, please do me a favor and stop doing it.
They tell you to turn your arms this way, okay?
Turn them like you're pouring out two cans.
Then get your arms about 45 degrees in front of your body here.
Now we come up, we lift the dumbbells, we come up that way, and then we come down.
Now, on somebody that already has a little bit of a shoulder issue – especially if
you're in rehab right now for your shoulder – this is going to kill.
Why?
Because this is a bad position for your shoulder.
It is anatomically a bad position for your shoulder.
This is what will cause impingement because we're instantly rotating, we're clearing less
room inside the shoulder joint here, so that when I try to elevate it I can't even do it
without hitting, likely, the acromion which is creating a lot less space in there, and
aggravating and already inflamed tendon that's in there.
So we look at that exercise and say "Yeah, but the EMG study says that it's the best
thing you can do.
It maximally activates the supraspinatus."
Great!
The EMG study is not matching up with the biomechanics and the anatomy of your shoulder
joint.
So this could be the best thing you could do EMG-wise, for activation of the supraspinatus,
but the worst thing you can do for actually causing more problems in the first place.
So you need to understand the difference and not just do what EMGs say, but do what your
body is telling you.
So what do you do?
Easy.
You just flip them around.
Make it the full can.
So you come here, you come to this plane – which I've already talked about a lot of times,
this is a better plane for your shoulder anyway.
It's more natural because the shoulder blade sits more forward just like that.
So if my arm moves in the direction that the shoulder blade sits in, then I'm actually
doing a really good – really the glenoid, the ball and socket sits more forward like
that.
So I'm able to get a more smooth up and down motion here.
So full can, not empty can.
Then finally we have a myth where people say "Oh, just use the same weight on all of your
rotator cuff exercises."
This one always puzzles me because, again, you have to understand the function of the
rotator cuff.
If it's external rotation, realize that you could do external rotation a lot of different
ways.
We can do it the way we normally see it, which is elbow in and tucked into the side, and
the move my arm out to the side.
That's external rotation, okay?
We could also do external rotation with my arm up high.
So from here, now I come up that way.
External rotation, okay?
More of a 90-90 position.
A little more difficult here.
We could also do it across our body.
This is an internally rotated arm here.
I can come up and across my body that way.
Now I've externally rotated my arm.
I don’t even have to get into full external rotation.
I'm just going from an internal rotation to a more neutral position, and that's external
rotation, too.
So we're up here like that.
All these different planes of motion – even this.
We can go on our sides here, all right?
Like this.
We could do sideline, right here.
You probably see people doing this all the time also.
All this is external rotation, but I'll tell you this: we're not using the same weight.
That would be like saying "Use the same weight for squats, deadlifts, bench press, tricep
extensions, and bicep curls".
That's not the way you do this.
Now I'm not saying there's going to be a great variation in the weight that you're using
because these are small muscles.
But you might use a 5 on one, an 8 pounder on one, a 12 pounder one, a 10 pounder on
one.
Make sure you're challenging yourself and trying to fatigue these muscles, because remember
what I said in the first place.
Your problem is likely a lack of strength.
If you want to build strength in these muscles to start correcting that huge imbalance, then
you'd better start working on building strength by challenging yourself with weights that
would cause you to increase your strength.
So there you have it, guys.
I hope you understand the rotator cuff a little bit more.
As I said in the beginning, if you're going through rehab right now on a rotator cuff
injury, or a surgery you're going to want to make sure you go back and watch this a
couple times because as a physical therapist, it's always something that I take with great
care, and passion here on this channel.
That's to make sure you're aware of your own body.
Empower yourself with education so you know what you can do.
It's not always in someone else's hands.
If it doesn't feel right it might not be right for you, and now you might be able to do something
about it.
All right, guys.
If you're looking for a program as you get healthy, as you get back into it, or if you're
looking for a program that actually places a high priority on a rotator cuff in the first
place so that you're not winding up with these imbalances; I've built it into all of our
regular strength work.
You can get that over at ATHLEANX.com.
It's our ATHLEANX training system.
In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful, leave your comments and thumbs up
below.
Let me know what you want me to cover here on this channel, and I'll do my best in the
days and weeks ahead.
All right, guys.
See ya!