Exercise · Shoulders

Band external rotation

Standing with the elbow pinned to the ribs, you rotate the forearm outward against a band. It looks like almost nothing is happening — a few inches of movement — and that is the point. This is not a muscle-building exercise; it is a retraining exercise for the small muscles at the back of the shoulder blade whose job is to hold the ball of the arm bone centred in its socket while bigger muscles move the arm. Momentum's system reads rotator cuff problems as a loss of exactly that: weak external-rotation control during elevation. The band is held at the side rather than overhead so the shoulder rebuilds the skill below the height that hurts.