5 Best Infraspinatus Exercises For Pain Free Shoulders

said nobody ever.

The infraspinatus is considered one of those muscles you never really hear of and sure don’t even know exists. Nonetheless, it is also considered one of those muscles that is commonly a part of the foundation reason for many alternative pains within the shoulder.

The infraspinatus muscle is considered one of the 4 muscles that make up your rotator cuff and plays a vital role in your shoulder’s health, stability, and mobility. This is the reason you need to give it some love although you may never get to indicate it off or get a compliment. We are going to show you the perfect infraspinatus exercises you’ll be able to do to assist bulletproof your shoulders.

The Shoulder Joint, Infraspinatus Muscles & Rotator Cuff

Your shoulder is essentially the most complex joint within the human body, which supplies it the very best range of motion and mobility. It’s essentially a ball-in-socket joint wherein a ball-like structure on the humerus (top arm bone) sits contained in the scapula’s hole, cup-like structure.

This basic structure allows the arms to maneuver in so many directions. Nonetheless, this same structure could cause various issues with the shoulder, corresponding to coming out of the socket or various overuse and impingement injuries.

The first muscle that mitigates that is the rotator cuff. This tough system of muscles and tendons surrounds the shoulder and holds the humerus contained in the socket, giving it flexibility while providing stability.

The Rotator Cuff

If you happen to’ve ever wondered how the arm stays attached to the body, the rotator cuff plays a significant role. Well, possibly not holding the arm to the body, but they definitely hold the humerus within the socket while allowing movement.

The 4 rotator cuff muscles are:

• Supraspinatus: Starts above the shoulder blade and attaches to the greater tuberosity of the humerus.
• Infraspinatus: Begins below the shoulder blade’s spine within the infraspinatus fossa and attaches to the back of the greater tuberosity of the humerus.
• Teres Minor: Originates on the periphery of the shoulder blade and inserts on the lower a part of the greater tuberosity of the humerus. Note that the teres major just isn’t a part of the rotator cuff.
• Subscapularis: Starts on the front of the shoulder blade and attaches to the lesser tuberosity of the humerus.

Each of the 4 rotator cuff muscles originates on the scapula and inserts on the humerus. This keeps the humorous snug contained in the joint while still allowing movement.

What Is The Infraspinatus Muscle?

Now that the structure higher, let’s examine the infraspinatus in additional depth.

The infraspinatus muscle sits in your back near the shoulder and deep to the traps, rear deltoid, or lats. It is a triangular-shaped, thick muscle with its base on the scapula that stretches towards your shoulder, tapers into its tendon, and attaches to the humerus.

Function Of The Infraspinatus

The infraspinatus has several functions, including not letting your arm fall off your body. Perhaps its most important function is the body’s primary external rotator. Imagine (or you’ll be able to do it) when you were standing tall along with your arm hanging right down to the side of the body. Now, flex your elbow to 90 degrees so the hand points straight in front of you. From here, to perform external rotation, keep your elbow tucked to your body, then rotate your arm outward so your hand is now identified laterally.

Along with external rotation, the infraspinatus also aids in shoulder extension; consider pulling your arm straight down in front of you as if performing a freestyle swim stroke. One other minor role is that it aids within the protraction or pulling your scapula forward.

Importance Of Training The Infraspinatus

We sometimes idiot ourselves into believing that small muscles don’t really matter. It is a huge mistake as each muscle within the human body has a task, and if any of them are weak, your health and performance will suffer.

This includes your infraspinatus. In actual fact, injury to the rotator cuff is the primary shoulder injury in energetic and inactive individuals.¹ While the supraspinatus tendon is seen to have essentially the most rotator cuff injuries, the infraspinatus tendon is the second commonest site for injuries.

Nonetheless, because our body functions as a series, a weakness on this muscle could cause further issues resulting from the necessity to overcompensate. This phenomenon is so intricate that weakness of the infraspinatus has even been found to cause some carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, and golfer’s elbow!²

It is important to know that the vast majority of injuries to the infraspinatus are resulting from repetitive movements and overuse moderately than sudden trauma.

5 Best Infraspinatus Exercises

We are going to go over the perfect infraspinatus exercises to strengthen your infraspinatus and whole rotator cuff. As a consequence of the character of biomechanics, most of those exercises shall be mobility-centered.

Do not forget that the infraspinatus works with a variety of muscles, so it’s worked with a plethora of exercises. Subsequently, these exercises will aim to isolate it as much as possible, which implies smaller exercises with lighter weights.

Nonetheless, we are going to list one awesome strength exercise to coach the infraspinatus at the top.

1. Side-Lying Wiper

We are going to start with possibly the perfect exercise to isolate your infraspinatus muscle. Do not forget that your infraspinatus is an element of your rotator cuff that features 4 muscles. As well as, several other muscles are involved in external rotation, corresponding to the traps and rear delts. The purpose is that isolating the infraspinatus might be difficult. Well, the side-lying wiper manages to do exactly that.

A 2013 study found that the Side-Lying Wiper exercise was essentially the most effective for isolating the infraspinatus muscles’ activation.³ It elicited maximum activation of the infraspinatus with minimal deltoid involvement.

How you can perform:

1. Lie in your left side along with your knees barely bent. Use a pillow to support your head.
2. Stick out your right arm in front of you, using your left hand to support it near the bicep. Bend your right elbow at 90 degrees so your hand is aimed towards your head.
3. You should use either body weight or a light-weight dumbbell.
4. Rotate your arm so your hand faces down, then rotate it back as high as possible.
5. Do your best to attenuate the movement of the arm.
6. Repeat as desired.

2. Lying Side Dumbbell External Rotation

The external rotation of the lying-side dumbbell could be very much like that of the side-lying wiper. Every little thing is analogous, except you’ll bring your elbow right down to the side of your body. From here, you retain your elbow tucked against your side after which rotate your arm out to your side.

How you can perform:

1. Lie in your right side along with your knees barely bent, using your right hand or arm to support your head, as shown within the video.
2. Hold a light-weight dumbbell in your left hand, pressing your elbow firmly against your left side.
3. Rotate your arm to lift the load upward until it’s directly above your left side, ensuring your elbow stays tucked in.
4. Slowly lower the dumbbell to the bottom, pausing for a one-count before repeating.

3. Standing Dual Banded External Rotation

The standing dual-banded external rotation works awesome as an on a regular basis infraspinatus exercise. You’ll be able to easily incorporate this into your warm-up or day by day mobility routine; you simply need a band.

Because the name suggests, you perform this exercise standing along with your arms right down to your side. Keeping your elbows tucked to your body, you lift your lower arm out in front of you. Then, hold a band with an underhand grip, keeping the band taut. From here, rotate each arms outward concurrently.

How you can perform:

1. Hold a resistance band in front of you. 
2. Stand along with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hold the bands along with your arms bent at 90 degrees, elbows near your sides.
3. Keep your back straight, shoulders relaxed, and core engaged throughout the movement.
4. Rotate your arms outward, away out of your body, while keeping your elbows stationary. Deal with using your shoulder muscles to drive the movement.
5. Slowly bring your arms back to the starting position, maintaining control of the bands.

4. Standing External Cable Rotation

Standing External Rotation exercises are excellent for targeting and strengthening your rotator cuff. Unlike using a dumbbell, which tends to have interaction your biceps resulting from the half-curl position, a cable machine allows for higher isolation of the infraspinatus muscles in the course of the rotation.

How you can perform:

1. Stand sideways to the left of the cable machine and grip the handle along with your right hand. Adjust the handle to the peak of your upper abdomen in order that your arm forms a 90-degree angle.
2. Keep your elbow near your side, maintain a straight back, loosen up your shoulders, and keep your head up.
3. Rotate your shoulder to tug the cable across your body and outward so far as possible without moving your elbow or upper arm.
4. Slowly return to the starting position, pausing for a one-count before your next repetition.

5. Cable Face Pulls

The face pulls. Probably the only best exercise you’ll be able to do to strengthen your upper back and shoulders while improving mobility and stability. The one problem with face pulls is most individuals perform them incorrectly, especially if you must hit your infraspinatus.

Many trainees will perform a face pull by only performing horizontal abduction or when the arms move back behind the body while the elbows are flared out, much like a bent-over row. Through the face pull, that is exaggerated, and the elbows are pulled back very high.

What you must do is begin the movement with horizontal abduction. Nonetheless, when your elbows are pulled back, you’ll concurrently perform external rotation. At the top of the movement, the elbows shall be back according to each other at a 90-degree angle in order that your hands are vertical.

You’ll be able to perform these on the cable machine using a rope attachment. Or, if you’ve got a dual pulley system, you need to use single handles, which offer quite a lot of mobility. We’ve an awesome video so you’ll be able to see what this looks like; it can make sense when you see it.

Infraspinatus Exercises Sets, Reps & Load

As mentioned, all of those infraspinatus exercises, especially the primary 4, shall be performed with lightweight equipment. Use a small dumbbell that enables 8-15 reps. Do not forget that these 4 aren’t strength-based but moderately are done to take care of mobility, improve function, and supply conditioning to the muscle.

Things are a bit different when performing the face pull. We are going to use this exercise in two ways. The primary is analogous to the primary 4 in that we’ll use lightweight equipment for lightweight equipment for mobility or warming up.

The second method could be more of a strengthening role. We are going to place it in our training session and treat it as such. Still, it can be towards the top of the workout and use reps anywhere from 8 to twenty. The principal difference is the load and approaching failure. Remember to maintain your scapula pulled back as you perform external rotation to hit the infraspinatus.

Construct Your Iron-Clad Shoulder

The infraspinatus and rotator cuff won’t be the sexiest muscle to coach. But do what else is not sexy? Not with the ability to perform any pressing movement because your shoulder hurts! In fact, things can occur when training, but by concentrating on training your infraspinatus preemptively, your probabilities of injury might be mitigated. That is sexy.

Try our full collection of shoulder exercises!

References

1. Minagawa, Hiroshi, et al. “Prevalence of Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Rotator Cuff Tears within the General Population: From Mass-Screening in One Village.” Journal of Orthopaedics, vol. 10, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 8–12, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768248/, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jor.2013.01.008.
2. Qerama, Erisela, et al. “Occurrence of Myofascial Pain in Patients with Possible Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – a Single-Blinded Study.” European Journal of Pain, vol. 13, no. 6, July 2009, pp. 588–591, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpain.2008.07.009. Accessed 12 Nov. 2019.
3. Ha, Sung-Min, et al. “Selective Activation of the Infraspinatus Muscle.” Journal of Athletic Training, vol. 48, no. 3, May 2013, pp. 346–352, https://doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-48.2.18.