I see lots of people recommend external rotations to people who have a weak bench. Why is this?
My bench is my worst lift and I am currently trying to improve it as much as possible. I have started doing external rotations in hopes that it will help. My concern is this: I am doing them because people told me to. In otherwords, I am blindly following advice.
Could someone please explain (or point me to where i cna find out)what they are doing to help me improve my bench? I searched and found only posts telling how beneficial they were, but not why.
Thanks
The shorth of it is they help to protect against shoulder injuries and they help offset strength imbalances. Although they only play a small roll in the actual lift (comparitivly) you will not be able to bench if you tear them.
Why are they better then just doing lateral raises or overhead presses?
They are not “better” per sey they work a different muscle complex and serve a different purpose.
Theoretical reason:
A well tuned car will run better than a car that misfires on one cylinder, even if each car uses the same amount of gas in the same period of time.
A body that is well tuned (has proper muscle balance) will be able to move a greater load with the same amount of energy.
When someone suggests that you do external rotation movements to help you improve any of your lifts, the goal is to restore or establish balance in your body.
Practical reason:
Balanced rotator cuff muscles allow the shoulder joint to move in a natural way thus reducing impingements.
Balanced trap strength allow an athlete to retract and set their scapula correctly before lifting to ensure proper movement patterns.
Balanced lower traps and rotator cuff muscles will allow for appropriate recruitment patterns given that the body does not have to overcome false load vectors due to biomechanical compensation caused by misaligned force vectors (if your not moving the load in the right direction, part of your body needs to pull it into the right direction which will waste effort).
What it comes down to is if you are able to use ONLY the muscles that move the load in the direction that is needed more out the recruitment energies go to those muscles and your lift numbers will increase.
There is almost no humeral rotation with laterals and overhead pressing so, with these movements, the rotator cuff muscles play only a stabilizing roll. These isometric contractions do not improve strength significantly throughout the entire ranger of motion so the benefit of these movements is mostly to the primary movers (deltoids). Therefore, these movements are not sufficient to correct strength imbalances in the rotator cuff and lower trap muscles; with someone who is balanced, they will often be enough.
That was a damn near perfect explaination! Thanks a lot. So I take it this is why correct form will add some pounds to a lift as well?
Also, could a sticking point actually be caused by something else? A shitty bench because rotators, back… (I’m not sure what else) are causing the problem?