Shoulder External Rotator Activation Progression

Shoulder External Rotator Activation Progression is a series of exercises designed to target and strengthen the external rotators of the shoulder. This progression includes dynamic warm-ups, stretching exercises and strength exercises to target all of the muscles involved in external rotation of the shoulder. This progression works on improving range of motion, strength, coordination and stability of the shoulder joint. Through improved activation of these muscles, athletes and individuals of all levels can prevent shoulder and rotator cuff injuries, improve performance,

Transcript

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This is Brent coming at you with
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activation. Now, in a previous video we did this optimal position, right here,
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this is a wonderful way to get things going. But, the problem becomes, how do I
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take it up a notch? I have my friend Rob to thank, one of our human movement
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science geek-outs, we came up with a way of getting us out of this neutral
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position so we can start working on strength in other ranges. Now, Rob is
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going to get up on the splint here, it's going to be in quadruped position, but
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you kind of have to find something to get the arms elevated on, because we
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are going to have arms bent at 90 degrees. Now the problem with taking him out of this
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neutral position here, is when I see people do, let's say external
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rotation at 90 degrees of abduction, usually what I end up seeing is a lot of
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compensation at the shoulder complex. We get that elevation of the
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superior angle of the scapula, we get this thing, a lot of anterior tipping, I
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don't want to see any of that because now, we might be getting good external
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rotator activation here, but we're contributing to compensation everywhere
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else. This ingenious little exercise that Rob showed me, gets the shoulder girdle
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weight-bearing, which means now I can queue scapular depression and protraction, I
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now know that he is stable, his serratus anterior is nice and active, which is one
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of our under active muscles, and now all I have to do is have him queue into external
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rotation. Actually just the friction, you see we even put a towel down to make it
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slicker, but just the friction of the surface and his body weight is enough to make
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this really, really, hard. Not to mention, his range of motion is fairly limited
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because he's working against all of these muscles that are now stretched at
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90 degrees of shoulder flexion. If I wanted to progress this exercise, it's
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actually really simple. I just give him this fit loop, I know you have seen
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fit loops before, a very, very, useful piece of equipment, very cheap,
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and now he can go one at a time, using one side as a stable arm. So this
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is stable, he can go unilateral, or we can progress it a little further and go
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bilateral, which makes this really, really, really, tough. Rob and I were talking
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about it a little bit, we're still working through this exercise, finding
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out, what I like to call, the personality of the exercise. We're not
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quite sure if it's twice as tough because of how much thoracic mobility it
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takes, or maybe just working against a lot of your own musculature, or if it's
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just the fact of double the resistance on the band. Now, if you didn't have
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all this setup, there is kind of a quick and dirty version of this exercise,
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which is up against the wall. So if Rob does the same thing against the wall,
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it's almost like a plank at this point, like if you thought about setting
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somebody up as in a plank position, against the wall, same nice kinetic chain
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checkpoints, have them walk their feet back just a little bit, so that they have
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a little bit of weight into the wall queue them once again into depression, and
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protraction at the scapula, and then he can do the same external rotation, just
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using the resistance of the wall initially, he could even walk his feet
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out a little further and increase that resistance a little bit, and, of course, I
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could already see that this is really hard, I know you guys can't see his face,
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but we can always add the band back, and of course you know fit loops come
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in many different resistances. So, squeeze your glutes for me, tuck under, good, and
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external rotation. So there you go, a neat little progression on external
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rotator activation. I hope you guys enjoy this exercise. I hope you see more