Call us at 281-633-8600 for an appointment. In this article and video, Dr. J. Michael Bennett demonstrates resistance band shoulder exercises you can use to strengthen your rotator cuff. Doctor Bennett serves patients from all over Houston and Texas from our clinic in Sugar Land. He specializes in treating issues of the shoulders, elbows, knees, hands and wrists.
These are exercises demonstrated by Doctor. J. Michael Bennett, a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and Fellowship Trained Sports Medicine Physician. We accept Aetna, Cigna, United Healthcare and most other medical health insurance plans, and we serve patients from the Metro Houston area through offices in Sugar Land TX.
This information is for educational purposes only. It’s not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. You should not start an exercise program or act upon any information provided here without first seeking medical advice from a physician.
Here’s a transcript of the video:
As far as the rotator cuff, there are four different muscles in the shoulder that comprise the rotator cuff. We isolate each set of those muscles by working on a
The human shoulder joint (Photo credit: Wikipedia) separate set of exercises. The first exercise is working on your external rotators; it primarily isolates the muscles in the back: the infraspinatus and the teres minor, and that gives you external rotation. So what I like to do is use these tension bands and I double them up. Then you grab your arm, keep your elbow at your hip here, do not flail it outward, and then gently external rotate and hold for a count of ten, and relax. Repeat: gently external rotate for ten and relax. That works the posterior musculature.
You can also do something similar to work the internal, or the anterior musculature, the subscapularis tendons up here at the front, which give you the strength to pull inward. Again, double up the tension bands, look straight ahead and then do an internal rotation, hold for a count of ten and relax. Repeat for a count of ten and relax. That will balance out the front and the back of the shoulder musculature.
Next, as far as the supraspinatus is concerned, which is the tendon up top, which is the main tendon that people often tear, what I recommend is to step on the tension bands themselves and bring the bands up above your head; this is coming outward at about 45 degrees or so from your body. Do this gently and under control, working out the supraspinatus tendon. Hold it for a count of ten and relax, and repeat as necessary.
So with that right there, we’ve worked out basically every muscle that surrounds the rotator cuff. This, in and of itself, will help stabilize the shoulder and give you a stronger foundation for dealing with instability or inherent laxity or looseness in the joints. As I mentioned before, though, please check with your surgeon or your doctor if you plan to do these exercises to make sure they’re okay for you or if they’ll work for you because if you do have any underlying shoulder pathology or any problems within the shoulder joint you want to make sure you are able to do these exercises without making anything worse.
