Shoulder Rehab Exercises
and Rotator Cuff Warmup Routine
Does your shoulder hurt? These shoulder rehab exercises take around a couple minutes to do, strengthen and protect your shoulder’s rotator cuff muscles, and are a great pre-workout warm up routine.
Throwing and swimming overuse injuries have made me prone to shoulder separations and impingement syndrome. A few months ago, I took a spill and landed on my right shoulder, mildly separating it for the umpteenth time! It hurt pretty bad for a couple days.
I then ran into this great shoulder rehab exercise / warm up routine from Diesel crew on YouTube. Using some of their ideas along with what I had learned from going through several shoulder rehab situations myself, I started to do my own brief warm up routine before each of my workouts. My shoulder has been getting healthier and healthier as the months have gone by.
At one point, I had an insight. I realized that my past injuries had ALL followed a pattern: I would get hurt, rest for a few days, and then be very diligent about doing these sorts of shoulder rehab exercises before every workout.
While I was keeping up with the exercises, I wouldn’t get hurt! It was only when I got lazy and stopped doing a proper warm up routine that I would end up injuring myself again!
So, learn from my mistakes. Warm up properly and keep your shoulders healthy!
The Routine:
The point of this warm up / rehab routine isn’t to complete some pre-determined number of repetitions. It is to activate the smaller muscles of the shoulder and upper back, get the blood flowing to them and prepare them to support your shoulder joints during your workout.
So, with that said, I usually do between 8-10 repetitions of each exercise. Or however many it takes to get a slight burn in the stabilizing muscles of the shoulder.
Since I don’t have an incline bench like they do in the video, I adapted by inclining myself! As it turns, out, just holding this position is a good lower back stabilizer endurance and warmup exercise.
Here I am using 5 pound dumbbells, but you can use any reasonably heavy objects, like a couple of bricks or soup cans.
Exercise #1: Shoulder Blade Pinches
Slowly pinch your shoulder blades together, flex them in that position for a moment, and then let them relax.
Repeat for 5-10 repititions.
Exercise #2: Rows
Starting from the position, flex the shoulder blades together as in Exercise #1, then continue to ‘row,’ bringing the weights toward the body as shown.
Reverse the motion, bringing the hands back down away from the body, then unflexing the shoulder blades.
Repeat for 5-10 repetitions.
Exercise #3: External Rotations
Continue the exercises as shown for Exercise #2, but then add a controlled external rotation at the end of the sequence.
Reverse the motions back to the starting position, and repeat for 5-10 repetitions.
Exercise #4: Press
Continue by going through the sequence as described in Exercise #3, but add a press at the end.
Reverse the motions back to the starting position, and repeat for 5-10 repetitions.
Exercise #5: Skiers
Staying an the same posture, smoothly bring the weights in front of you, then behind you, as if you are pushing off with ski poles.
Repeat for 5-10 repetitions.
Exercise #6: Pouring it Out
Standing straight up, grab the weights with your thumbs facing down. Slowly and under control, lift the weights up at a 45 degree angle to your body, keeping the thumbs down.
Stop before your hands get to shoulder height.
Slowly return the weights to their starting position.
Repeat for 5-10 repetitions.
Now you’re ready!
This routine should take around 2 minutes to complete.
You should feel a bit of a burn in your shoulders. That’s good. The blood is flowing. You are now ready to work out!
These shoulder rehab exercises will strengthen the smaller stabilizer muscles that are so important to maintaining shoulder health.
Do this warm up routine before every workout to stay strong and healthy!