Shoulder Stabilizer Exercises

Keeping the shoulder muscles stable is important to prevent injury from doing even routine, daily activities such as carrying a heavy computer bag slung over one shoulder, carrying heavy grocery bags in each hand in front of the chest or hoisting a small child onto your hip to be carried around. All these activities rely on healthy rotator cuff muscles that wrap around each shoulder joint. The rotator cuff muscles include subscapularis, supraspinatis, infraspinatus and teres minor.

Why Is Shoulder Stability Important?

• The shoulder joint can dislocate if the arm is brought behind the shoulder past a 90-degree angle. This is because the shoulder joint has a greater range of movement. It is very difficult to dislocate the hip, for example, as the muscles that secure each leg bone (femur) are larger and less flexible than the rotator cuff muscles.

  Nonathletes can dislocate the shoulder joint by sitting in the driver's seat of the car and reaching into the backseat to pick up a heavy bag---placing the arm in a degree that brings it behind the shoulder. This is a common injury.

  Sometimes, you can plug the arm back in on your own, but usually seeing a physical therapist or orthopedist might be necessary.

Low-Tech Exercise to Stabilize Shoulders

• Stand with your feet hip-width apart and bring your lower abdominal muscles in toward the spine. Hold a light ball, such as a basketball or small medicine ball, and turn from center, to left, center, right and center.

  Keep your head high and chest tall the entire time to avoid arching the lower back excessively. Do two sets of 15 to 20 repetitions. This movement will work all the rotator cuff muscles in a safe way.

Supine (lying) Flys for Shoulder Stability

• In a gym, do supine flys on a flat bench that is nailed into the floor to stabilize the shoulders. Use very light weights: even 6 to 10 pounds in each hand. The idea is to activate the rotator cuff muscles and not the chest, lats or other back muscles with heavier weights.

  Lie on the bench on your back, setting your feet flat on the bench, hip-width apart. Engage the lower abs, and holding a dumbbell in each hand, straighten your arms and hold them above the top of the chest.

  Keeping your elbows bent, draw the shoulder blades down from the ears and embed the bottom tips of the shoulder blades in toward the chest. Lower each hand to the side only so far as you can keep the scapula of each shoulder blade flattened on the back. Lift back to the starting position. Do two sets of 10 repetitions. Rest.