Safeguard Your Shoulders With Cable Sagittal Internal Rotation

It’s been common for sometime now to perform external rotation exercises as a rehab and prehab exercise to protect the shoulders. External rotation work helps balance out the use of heavy internal rotation based movements such as bench/shoulder pressing and chin-up/pull-up variations. External rotation work is often warranted and good practice considering most trainees preference for the aforementioned big exercises over time cause forward rotated shoulders and associated weakness/injury. However, have you ever considered you may have an INTERNAL rotation discrepancy between the right and left shoulder? It’s not uncommon for people to have a strength imbalance from right to left and shoulder internal rotation strength is no exception. Your shoulders need to have the same internal strength balance just as much as they need the same external rotation strength balance. Correcting imbalances from right to left is just as important as maintaining proper strength ratios between internal and external shoulder rotator muscle groups.

One exercise that you can use to discover and rectify any potential internal rotation discrepancies with great clarity is the Cable Sagittal Internal Rotation exercise. We choose the cable variation because it keeps this muscle group (the internal rotators) under constant tension during the entire movement and allows for more strict exercise form. To get the most out of this exercise, click on our video link and see the full description below:

  1. Stand perpendicular to a cable machine with a single D-handle attached around navel height. Grasp the handle with your inside arm (working side) and have your feet shoulder width apart so that the working side foot is 1-2 feet apart from the machine.

 

  1. Bend your elbow to 90 degrees and have it tucked against your side so that your forearm is angled 45 degrees from your torso and is parallel to the floor.

 

  1. Slowly move your hand along with your forearm in front of your body in a circular motion until the forearm has moved to 135 degrees relative to the starting position. Ensure that your forearm remains parallel to the floor and your elbow is tucked against your side the entire time.

 

  1.  Slowly bring your hand along with your forearm back to the starting position in a circular motion.

 

  1. Repeat for the total number of desired reps before doing the same exercise for the opposite side.

 

High reps (12-20 reps) work best for this exercise. For best results, make sure to use suitable machine load that’s not too heavy nor too light to allow you to focus more on your form and to control both the positive and negative parts of the movement.

 

To learn more about this exercise and many others, contact us today and book your Free Coaching session: