Band external rotation

What it is

Anchor a band at about elbow height. Stand side-on with the anchor on the far side from the working arm, and hold the end in the near hand.

Tuck your elbow against your side and bend it to a right angle. Keeping the elbow pinned there, rotate your forearm outward, away from your body. Return under control.

A rolled towel held between elbow and ribs makes the position obvious and stops the elbow drifting.

What it demands

Very little, in absolute terms, and that is correct: infraspinatus and teres minor are small muscles and the loads involved are small.

Keeping the elbow still, which is the whole skill.

What usually goes wrong

The elbow leaves the side. It drifts forward or out and the movement becomes a row.

Rotating the whole body. The torso turns and the arm goes along for the ride. The forearm should move relative to the torso, not with it.

Far too much resistance. More common here than anywhere else in the collection. If you need to lean or swing, the band is too strong.

Expecting it to feel like much. It does not, and it is not supposed to.

Where it sits

An isolation movement for a specific and genuinely under-loaded pair of muscles. External rotation strength is typically much lower than internal rotation strength — two small muscles against several large ones — and almost nothing in ordinary training loads it directly.

Worth being precise about what this is not: it is not rehabilitation, and this site does not give rehabilitation advice. It is ordinary training for a movement most programmes leave out. A shoulder that hurts is a question for a physiotherapist.

The face pull trains the same rotation as part of a pulling movement, which most people find less tedious.