External Rotators; How Much Is Too Much?

I was reading a follow-up from a Poliquin seminar which reminded me of Poliquin’s tale of how he helped increase Adam Nelson’s incline bench by something like 150 lbs in 2 months by putting him on a specialization plan for his external rotators.

I don’t believe in magic bullets and I know Charles seems to exagerate quite often. Still, he is a great coach as has done wodners for many athletes. I’ve looked for, but never come across any of his programs for the rotators. Has anyone else?

I know Charles has written that to be balanced, one’s 8rm on the lying side external rotation should be roughly 9% of your close grip bench. I don’t see how that is even possible as I am not even close.

Has anyone else tested for this? Anyone with particularly strong external rotators? For that matter, should they be that strong and how much work do they need?

I have a hard time believing you could make major improvements on them with the 2-3 sets at the end of a workout prescription advocated by so many coaches. That may be enough to prevent injury, but is it enough to improve performance?

I do 2-3 sets of external rotations with a mini band 4 times a week. My shoulders are better than ever. Balance is important. I do internal rotations too.

i think rotators are important but do not forget rear delts either, i learned my lesson as i injured my shoulder due to imbalances.

[quote]Wild_Iron_Gym wrote:
I do 2-3 sets of external rotations with a mini band 4 times a week. My shoulders are better than ever. Balance is important. I do internal rotations too.[/quote]

I’m going to start doing internal rotations as well, I recently found that my rom is pretty limited on them and strength is non-existent. Its all I can do to lift a 3 lb dumbell and honestly, that is too much.

Seems you hear very little about internal roation in regard to mobility and stability. The only time internal rotation is mentioned is when someone talks external rotation and how we need more of it do to balance the internal rotation that takes place on exercise like BP, and dips. There is more to internal rotation than that.

[quote]
i think rotators are important but do not forget rear delts either, i learned my lesson as i injured my shoulder due to imbalances. [/quote]

Heck yeah rear delts are important. I was doing 100 band pull aparts a day to help bring them up to par. It worked for me, but it took time.

I’ve been using the shoulder horn at my gym of late in addition to face pulls, scap pushups, wall slides, and y and t raises on trx . I also think deadlifting helps balance my shoulders.

Well, just from my experience as a strength coach, my lifter came to me with a bum shoulder. External rotation was not the all end all, but he was benching 370 when he came to me, and could only externally rotate like 2.5 lbs it was horrible. He was eventually able to externally rotate 30lbs x 8 after working with him. Like I said we did other things as well in specialization with his shoulder, after 5 months we went back to benching and in like 2 to 3 weeks he was putting up 415. So I think it played a role in the improvement.

Yeah, I think external rotations have some good carryover to the bench.

I started out doing 4 sets at the end of my workouts 2x per week. After awhile I put on some strength there I dropped to 1 set. When I started 6 months ago I was doing 1 set on the cable tower for 10 reps and now I am doing three plates for 10-12 reps per set.

[quote]OUBobcatLifter wrote:

I know Charles has written that to be balanced, one’s 8rm on the lying side external rotation should be roughly 9% of your close grip bench. I don’t see how that is even possible as I am not even close.

Has anyone else tested for this? Anyone with particularly strong external rotators? For that matter, should they be that strong and how much work do they need?

I have a hard time believing you could make major improvements on them with the 2-3 sets at the end of a workout prescription advocated by so many coaches. That may be enough to prevent injury, but is it enough to improve performance?

[/quote]

I’d say that it’s a pretty accurate figure…remember, it’s for one max set, not for consistent training after training.

If you’re that far off, I’d say that you need to really pay more attention to that area in your training.

Not sure if it will add as much as Charles says it will on your pressing, but it’s worth at least 20+ I’d say.

I prefer using mini bands as well…you can better adjust the needed tension on the fly.

That’s why my shoulder is injured right now. I can do quite a bit of weight on it, but my shoulder has just rolled forward too much and I really gotta get it fixed (i have a couple threads on here about it lol)

I think this is ONE of the major reasons my bench press wasn’t increasing either. I hope after bringing everything back up to bar I’ll get that 405 bench that I was so damn close to before.

I’m currently doing things for my rear delts (rear raises etc) Y’s T’s, scap push ups (if it doesnt irritate me) and ESPECAILLY external rotations.

For me though I really need to make sure I retract my scapula…the physio showed me when I was just doing it my shoulder was still “out of socket” and was rolling forward…which is what we don’t want.

I do all my external rotations with a band so I can REALLY focus on pulling my scapula back and this locks my shoulder in place. After that I go to town with the external rotations making sure each rep is perfect. If I need to reset then thats alright, as long as they are perfect reps.

Damn it’s only when your injured you realize how important it is lol

I never thought to give bands a try on these. I wonder how they’d work using the shoulder horn? I really like the shoulder horn thus far. Makes cheating almost impossible. Amazing the burn you get using a 3lb dumbell for 15-20 reps (not that the burn matters).

Id like to try that shoulder horn for them, Ive incorporated them into my shoulder rehab. I guess i need to use more weight though. 5 pounds just aint cuttin it

How much does that shoulder horn help? I’m not 100% sure of what it’s purpose is?

[quote]rasturai wrote:
How much does that shoulder horn help? I’m not 100% sure of what it’s purpose is?

[/quote]

There were a couple of lifters benching 400+ raw at my old gym who used it regularly. I should have paid more attention to what they were doing and asked questions; at the time I was more concerned with how I looked and those guys were probably the opposite of what I had in mind.

What I’ve gathered from my own experience is that the shoulder horn makes cheating much more difficult. I get less help from my anterior and medial delts and find I’m really able to focus on technique. Not sure if its worth the price of buying just yet. I’m going to give it an honest chance and would be happy to let you know if I see any improvements over the next couple months.

Yeah that’d be appreciated man. I was wondering if it would work the same way if someone held the chest and opposite side of shoulder in place and then to do the movement?
I know my dad could help me with that. They are a bit pricey.