 All right next question is from Braden shoots. What are some good strength or mobility moves for the rotator cuff? Man back in the day this this was a when I first learned about Strengthening them the muscles of that. Well, so first off. Let's go into the rotator cuff. Yeah, what is responsible for? So the cuff itself is a part of the of the shoulder blade where certain stabilizer muscles attached to That affect the shoulder so you have these what are called big prime mover Muscles so like you're pressing overhead or your bench pressing you're using these big You know the big muscles of the shoulders that the front part of the deltoid the side the rear part You know the muscles that make up the deltoid, but there's deeper muscles that control your arms twist The rotating that it happens. So like let's say I throw a baseball And I wrote and I throw a baseball real hard the muscles that stabilize the shoulder are really what helps slow My arm down or if I throw a punch or a frisbee It gives your bone and track to so it keeps everything in the right spot Right and so what the reason why there's so many issues with the the rotator cuff or the muscles that stabilize the shoulders because We tend to work the big Muscles we work the big movements and we don't strengthen the support system so much So then when you go and do an explosive movement or you push really heavy weight The stabilizer muscles can't keep up with these big muscles now. I remember when this first happened to me I was in my teens. I was in my late teens maybe 17 18 years old I've been working out now for a while and I was starting to get pretty strong My bench press was getting up there overhead press was getting up there I could do heavy heavy rows and I remember that It I had the string of kind of shoulder pain where I was my bench press would would go up a little bit And then my shoulder would kind of tweak a little bit and it would go back down I couldn't figure out what was going on and you know This is back in the in the late 90s. I used to read bodybuilding magazines Well in the back of one of the bodybuilding magazines, there was this device that worked on the rotator cuff And I think it was called a shoulder horn or something like that Couldn't remember I can't remember what it's called But it held your arms up so you put it around your neck and it went around your arms And it held your arms up kind of in this like T position And then what you did is you held dumbbells and you rotate it back flip them back And it was the first time I'd ever been exposed to a you know An external rotating type movement. So I of course being a frugal kid I read that and I said, oh, I can do that without that thing And I went up to a bench put my elbow up on the bench And I started doing this external rotation with a really light dumbbell Couldn't believe how much stronger my bench press got almost immediately like I did that the following week My bench press that was stuck forever at whatever weight went up five or ten pounds and I was like, holy cow This is a really big deal and since that day I've incorporated External rotation in in my my shoulder workouts and many of my shoulder workouts now I'll recommend one that I think is generally Easy for most people to do because some of them I think are more difficult. It's a targeted movement for part of the Stabilizer muscles that I think a lot of people tend to have issues with and those are the ones that externally rotate The the humorous so I'll kind of try and break it down here on the podcast So what you do is you stand with your arm at your side elbow bent have a resistance band Attached to something and then just rotate while keeping your elbow bent and stuck to your side Just rotate your hand out and bring it back in that's it very basic movement Very direct movement on strengthening some of the muscles that I think a lot of people tend to have issues with Yeah, I like face poles too like in terms of like emulating a little bit of what you're talking about With the cables and I use that a lot as a primer Getting into overhead pressing for that specific reason. It's really prime. You know that that external rotation and Again, this is this is where Like I don't really know any other movement that nails all the different functions and the rotation of the shoulder Better than a heart swing and I've I've promoted this You know ad nauseum on my Instagram because I want people to realize that there's ways to actually exercise You know these these muscles it And you do like those are some very common ones you get from like the physical therapist Yeah, if you're injured you have like a rubber band and you're gonna do some extra rotation with it And some abduction and things like that. However, like taking it through all those different ranges of motion You know and then starting to slowly load it so loading it to something that's like one to two pounds But then taking it in so you you basically start in sort of a racked position so my hands like really close to my chest and then I'm throwing my arm across my body getting that rotation to come Into extension and then all the way up and then kind of behind my back behind my neck And then dropping my shoulder down and it just kind of like Seamlessly flows through like all those different points of rotation, which is a great exercise I'm I'm gonna piggyback off of you Justin because I think nothing is better than the Indian clubs and the May spells for this stuff I think that To what Sal was talking about and the point that you just made The only because that that was what I used to do for rotator cuff stuff is very staple You know standing it's rehabby. Yeah, very and not only is it really it's also in us in the same plane and The shoulder is one of the most complex joints in the entire body. It's multifaceted right it moves in all these different planes It's very dynamic and The reality of it is rarely ever will you ever move your arm or shoulder in this exact same Plane whenever you do normal things you're gonna move in multiple So I like to strengthen and work on the rotator cuff in something. That's more dynamic Like Indian clubs or may spell I think Again, this was something that you Justin really Introduced me to and has now become a staple in my routine before that. I was like Sal I was the kid who found the rotator cuff exercises I also noticed what a big difference it made on my my bench press not only how much stronger I got and support I felt But I just didn't hurt as much like I used to always like my shoulders would kind of bother me all the time When I would do heavy chest and when I began to start to start workouts with rotator cuff exercises I noticed that it would alleviate that so that was like the big connection for me first with that And then when I got introduced to the Indian clubs and may spell with Justin What I found was oh, this is really cool. I can once I got good at those movements I could just start every kind of upper body if I was ever doing chest or shoulders I always still to this day start my routine with just a quick little Indian club and may spell warm-up and I've over time gotten stronger and stronger so I can for me and I don't Never forget the first time swinging that may spell It was awkward and hard and five pounds of it was weird and the Indian clubs The super light ones were difficult and challenging once I trained that and got really good Now I just got a grab I can go grab the 30 pound may spell right now cold and start swinging around no problem Or that the heavier Indian clubs we have I can get right into it because I've done a good job of keeping that up and my shoulders I've never felt so good and it doesn't take a lot of work and effort if I just include it into my routine It's important because I mean if if you're like me and you you know You're trying to throw the ball with your kids, you know or whatever it is like the like you'd be very surprised If you haven't done it for like years or decades and you all of a sudden start throwing a ball again Like what kind of aches and pains and things are gonna, you know come out of that And so to keep that in your routine is is paramount to then you know Keep you functional and keep you active in your in your everyday life totally And you know, I'll give you one that you can go on our YouTube channel and look up And we have a good video on handcuffs with rotation. That's a great great shoulder movement It works the the shoulder through a pretty full range of motion And you know unless you're injured It's a great movement that you can do priming movement that'll maintain Good health of the shoulders and we again, we have a really good video on our YouTube channel mind pump TV