Mark Ottobre shows how to do side-lying external rotation with a dumbbell for shoulder health. Fold a towel under your armpit, squeeze your elbow into it, and use just 1-2 kg while focusing on full range of motion. Do 5-6 controlled reps per set, holding the end position.
This is side-lying external rotation with a dumbbell. What I'd recommend is you do this with a towel, and I'll show you why in a second. So you fold up the towel into a square, and what you're gonna do is you're gonna place that square just kind of mid, almost under your armpit, near your elbow, not like right under your armpit and not right on your elbow, just mid. The reason is, is as we look at our shoulder, we want a direct line down, and what this does is just supports that elbow so you've got a direct line down. Now, What you do when you're doing this external rotation is you're squeezing your elbow into that towel. One of the cues I like to give my clients is, imagine I'm gonna try and pull the towel out from you, right? So if I'm gonna try and pull the towel away from you, you need to squeeze in and stiffen up. As you stiffen up, you're gonna come all the way out as much as you possibly can and back down. Don't try and do too heavy on this. Don't try and go for load. Really try and go for range of motion, especially if you've— you're weak through here. Some people might only be able to use a kilo, 2 kilos, that's completely fine. And we wanna get that end range, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, hold it all the way down. I like 5 to 6 reps here, 5 to 6 good reps and multiple sets as you do this. So what I'm doing now is good, I'm squeezing everything, I'm really trying to open up as I do that. Once you've completed all reps on one side, make sure you do the other arm. This is your side lying external rotation.
