Bodybuilders - Here's How You Can Keep Your Shoulders Healthy In Less Than 5 Minutes A Week

Bodybuilders - Here's How You Can Keep Your Shoulders Healthy In Less Than 5 Minutes A Week

Training with weights to build muscle is a terrific sport with all sorts of health benefits attached to it. Having said that, doing the exercises that build muscle can cause wear and tear on the body, and because us recreational or amateur bodybuilders don't have the robust joints of competition winners, we need to take care of our joints.

When you're younger you tend to be a bit gung ho with your joints, but these aches and pains can come back to haunt you in middle age and even before that.

I can't think of an upper body muscle building exercise that doesn't use the shoulder joint, so having healthy shoulders is a vital part of being able to train hard and gain muscle - and even if you don't train with weights you don't want to have creaky shoulders, do you?

Here is an exercise that can go a long way to keeping your shoulders healthy. It takes no more than five minutes a week, probably less than that. I can attest to the benefits of doing this exercise, because I totally rehabilitated a shoulder injury just by doing this exercise once a week.

This exercise is called "The L-Fly".

It's purpose is to strengthen the external rotator muscles inside the rotator cuff in the shoulder joint.

All of us have an imbalance in external and internal rotation strength. We're all a lot stronger with internal rotation than external rotation, and this imbalance can lead to shoulder injuries.

Here's how you can prove to yourself the difference in internal and external rotation strength.

Imagine you're shaking hands with someone with your right hand. Now, try and move your right hand to your left side by turning your right forearm to the left. This is internal rotation.

Now return to the original position, and try and move your right hand to your right by turning your right forearm to your right. This is external rotation. You should quickly see that you're much stronger doing the internal rotation than the external rotation. If you're unsure, have a friend actually grasp your hand and then have them try and stop you from doing the two rotations - this should prove the difference in rotation strengths.

So here is how you do the L-fly.

Take a very light dumbbell - no more than a couple of pounds to begin with - you can gradually build the weight up as you get used to the movement.

Lay on your left side, holding the bell in your right hand. Your upper arm is close to your side.

Now try and rotate your right forearm to your right - i.e. the bell goes upward toward the ceiling. Don't force this, and do it slowly and under control. When you get as far as you can, slowly lower the bell back to the start position. That is one rep.

I'd suggest two sets of eight reps or so, done once a week. This should be all you need. When you've done your eight reps, lay on the other side, holding the bell in the other hand, and work the other side.

That's it. Five minutes a week for healthy shoulders.

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