Subscapularis

In the fantasy draft of all the muscles in the body, this might not be the flashiest, strongest, biggest first overall pick, but this late round, underrated little muscle could definitely help you win some championships. Yes, I'm talking about the Tom Brady of muscles the subscapularis. This little guys is invisible to the naked eye because it hides under the scapula between it and the ribcage. It reaches out and grabs the upper arm to cause...

Internal rotation...

As the image at the top of the page shows us, when your arm is at your side, contraction of the subscapularis internally rotates your arm so that you pat yourself on the belly, maybe even reach into your back pocket for your wallet. Not the sexiest of moves, but bring your away from your body with your hand overhead while you internally rotate the shoulder joint, and now you're doing a throwing motion, that if perfected, can get you into the Hall of Fame, win a World Series, make it to the Olympics, and make you look really cool.  

So let's go train....

Click on the image for more training tips.

Well, not so fast my friend. Chances are if you workout with any regularity or play sports, you already have strong internal rotation. Perhaps a little too strong. Actually, if you're reading this page you're probably not concerned with decreasing your strength. When I say too strong, I mean relative to those external rotators we looked at last week. As mentioned, many exercises and sport specific motions involve internal rotation with the arm above your head. Over time, your shoulder flexors and adductors like the pectoralis major anterior deltoids can become dominant, leading to a rounded shoulder posture.

There is a reason I left this rotator cuff muscle for last, and that is because it is the least likely to be weak. Sure you want to make it stronger so you can throw a baseball faster, but just by repeatedly throwing you are usually getting all the exercise it needs. Still, it's not a bad idea to do a warm-up of all of the tendons and muscles of the rotator cuff every time you do heavy pushing or pulling exercises, especially overhead lifts.

Training the subscapularis is simple once you know the motion. Of course, you have to lie on your side to work against gravity, so I suggest working with a band or a cable pulley machine. With your arm at your side, internally rotate to your belly against the resistance, but even better, move abduct your arm with your hand above your head to perform internal rotation as in the image above.

DON'T FORGET YOUR EXTERNAL ROTATORS!!!! Every time you train your subscap. Typically they are much much weaker. Don't believe me??? Set the cable pulley machine to 30lbs and try internal rotation vs external rotation. I gaurentee that your internal rotation will be stronger. I usually set the machine to 30lbs for internal rotation and 20lbs for external rotation for a warm-up, but I prefer the constant tension of band work and just adjust the distance from the point it is secured to ajdust tension.