How To Test The Rotator Cuff Muscles

The rotator cuff muscles are a group of four muscles that literally hold the shoulder to the rest of your skeleton. They do have help from other muscles, but they are the main ones.

If you experience rotator cuff pain or weakness you might look for rotator cuff exercises, many people do. However, exercises don’t help much as most people have an inherent weakness in the muscles of the rotator cuff. The cause of this weakness will take time to explain, and will be covered in another post.

For now, let’s find out if you have a weakness in this area or not with this simple rotator cuff muscles test. For this test you’ll need a friend to challenge your shoulder muscles for you.

A caution before you start. If there is rotator cuff pain, or the shoulder hurts when you do this test, that is considered a weakness. Just let go and allow your friend to pull your arm down.

Lie on your back with your left arm extended straight up above the shoulder with the palm facing towards your feet. Bending your elbow involves other muscles, so keep it straight or you wouldn’t be testing the rotator cuff. You want to know the truth about how strong your rotator cuff muscles are don’t you?

Your friend would sit on your left side and pull your arm straight down towards your side with their right hand. Their left hand is on your left hip for stabilization.

Their pull should be really strong. They might be able to pull your arm down because of the leverage, but it would take a lot of strength on their part. And, the arm would stay strong all the way down if the rotator cuff is working correctly. But, most likely it will give up and go down fast, that is the weakness. This applies to all four tests.

Next, they place their palm on your palm and press your arm away from them, overhead for you, while you resist.

Rotator Cuff Test Push

The next test is done with your palm turned out so it is facing to your left. You friend pressed your arm out, to the left side. Finally, turn your hand so the palm is facing in, towards your right, while your friend presses outward again while you resist.

Rotator Cuff Test Push Out 1

Rotator Cuff Test Push Out 2

These are the four rotator cuff muscles and how you can check for rotator cuff pain or rotator cuff symptoms in general. Soon there will be a video on how to do these tests.

That video will be your opportunity to get a free copy of the adjustment technique. And, you get to help me determine if this is something that should be sold. I need to make sure people are able to learn how to do the adjustment from the video before I go asking money for it. I’ll explain the details once the video is posted.

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