Written by Garett Reid | NSCA, CSCS, CISSN, M.S.E.S.S
Fact checked by Kiel DiGiovanni, Co-founder
FACT CHECKED
"Hey man, you have an awesome set of infraspinatus muscles!" said no one ever.
The infraspinatus is one of those muscles you never really hear of and likely don't even know exists. However, it's also one of those muscles that is often part of the root cause of many different pains in the shoulder.
The infraspinatus muscle is one of the four muscles that make up your rotator cuff and plays a crucial role in your shoulder's health, stability, and mobility. This is why you must give it some love even though you'll never get to show it off or get a compliment. We will show you the best infraspinatus exercises you can do to help bulletproof your shoulders.
The Shoulder Joint, Infraspinatus Muscles & Rotator Cuff
Your shoulder is the most complex joint in the human body, which gives it the highest range of motion and mobility. It's essentially a ball-in-socket joint in which a ball-like structure on the humerus (top arm bone) sits inside the scapula's hollow, cup-like structure.
This basic structure allows the arms to move in so many directions. However, this same structure can cause various issues with the shoulder, such as coming out of the socket or various overuse and impingement injuries.
The primary muscle that mitigates this is the rotator cuff. This tough system of muscles and tendons surrounds the shoulder and holds the humerus inside the socket, giving it flexibility while providing stability.
Image courtesy of 3dmusclelab.com
The Rotator Cuff
If you've ever wondered how the arm stays attached to the body, the rotator cuff plays a major role. Well, maybe not holding the arm to the body, but they definitely hold the humerus in the socket while allowing movement.
The four rotator cuff muscles are:
- Supraspinatus: Starts above the shoulder blade and attaches to the greater tuberosity of the humerus.
- Infraspinatus: Begins below the shoulder blade's spine in the infraspinatus fossa and attaches to the back of the greater tuberosity of the humerus.
- Teres Minor: Originates at the outer edge of the shoulder blade and inserts on the lower part of the greater tuberosity of the humerus. Note that the teres major is not part of the rotator cuff.
- Subscapularis: Starts on the front of the shoulder blade and attaches to the lesser tuberosity of the humerus.
Each of the four rotator cuff muscles originates on the scapula and inserts on the humerus. This keeps the humorous snug inside the joint while still allowing movement.
What Is The Infraspinatus Muscle?
Now that you know the structure better, let's examine the infraspinatus in more depth.
The infraspinatus muscle sits on your back near the shoulder and deep to the traps, rear deltoid, or lats. It's a triangular-shaped, thick muscle with its base on the scapula that stretches towards your shoulder, tapers into its tendon, and attaches to the humerus.
Function Of The Infraspinatus
The infraspinatus has several functions, including not letting your arm fall off your body. Perhaps its most crucial function is the body's primary external rotator. Imagine (or you can do it) if you were standing tall with your arm hanging down to the side of the body. Now, flex your elbow to 90 degrees so the hand points straight in front of you. From here, to perform external rotation, keep your elbow tucked to your body, then rotate your arm outward so your hand is now pointed out laterally.
In addition to external rotation, the infraspinatus also aids in shoulder extension; think of pulling your arm straight down in front of you as if performing a freestyle swim stroke. Another minor role is that it aids in the protraction or pulling your scapula forward.
Importance Of Training The Infraspinatus
We sometimes fool ourselves into believing that small muscles don't really matter. This is a huge mistake as every single muscle in the human body has a role, and if any of them are weak, your health and performance will suffer.
This includes your infraspinatus. In fact, injury to the rotator cuff is the number one shoulder injury in active and inactive individuals.¹ While the supraspinatus tendon is seen to have the most rotator cuff injuries, the infraspinatus tendon is the second most common site for injuries.
However, because our body functions as a chain, a weakness in this muscle can cause further issues due to the need to overcompensate. This phenomenon is so intricate that weakness of the infraspinatus has even been found to cause some carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow, and golfer's elbow!²
It's important to understand that the majority of injuries to the infraspinatus are due to repetitive movements and overuse rather than sudden trauma.
5 Best Infraspinatus Exercises
We will go over the best infraspinatus exercises to strengthen your infraspinatus and entire rotator cuff. Due to the nature of biomechanics, most of these exercises will be mobility-centered.
Remember that the infraspinatus works with a range of muscles, so it is worked with a plethora of exercises. Therefore, these exercises will aim to isolate it as much as possible, which means smaller exercises with lighter weights.
However, we will list one awesome strength exercise to train the infraspinatus at the end.
1. Side-Lying Wiper
We will start with possibly the best exercise to isolate your infraspinatus muscle. Remember that your infraspinatus is part of your rotator cuff that includes four muscles. In addition, several other muscles are involved in external rotation, such as the traps and rear delts. The point is that isolating the infraspinatus can be challenging. Well, the side-lying wiper manages to do just that.
A 2013 study found that the Side-Lying Wiper exercise was the most effective for isolating the infraspinatus muscles' activation.³ It elicited maximum activation of the infraspinatus with minimal deltoid involvement.
How to perform:
- Lie on your left side with your knees slightly bent. Use a pillow to support your head.
- Stick out your right arm in front of you, using your left hand to support it near the bicep. Bend your right elbow at 90 degrees so your hand is aimed towards your head.
- You can use either body weight or a light dumbbell.
- Rotate your arm so your hand faces down, then rotate it back as high as possible.
- Do your best to minimize the movement of the arm.
- Repeat as desired.
2. Lying Side Dumbbell External Rotation
The external rotation of the lying-side dumbbell is very similar to that of the side-lying wiper. Everything is similar, except you will bring your elbow down to the side of your body. From here, you keep your elbow tucked against your side and then rotate your arm out to your side.
How to perform:
- Lie on your right side with your knees slightly bent, using your right hand or arm to support your head, as shown in the video.
- Hold a light dumbbell in your left hand, pressing your elbow firmly against your left side.
- Rotate your arm to lift the weight upward until it is directly above your left side, ensuring your elbow stays tucked in.
- Slowly lower the dumbbell to the ground, pausing for a one-count before repeating.
3. Standing Dual Banded External Rotation
The standing dual-banded external rotation works awesome as an everyday infraspinatus exercise. You can easily incorporate this into your warm-up or daily mobility routine; you only need a band.
As the name suggests, you perform this exercise standing with your arms down to your side. Keeping your elbows tucked to your body, you lift your lower arm out in front of you. Then, hold a band with an underhand grip, keeping the band taut. From here, rotate both arms outward simultaneously.
How to perform:
- Hold a resistance band in front of you.
- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hold the bands with your arms bent at 90 degrees, elbows close to your sides.
- Keep your back straight, shoulders relaxed, and core engaged throughout the movement.
- Rotate your arms outward, away from your body, while keeping your elbows stationary. Focus on using your shoulder muscles to drive the movement.
- Slowly bring your arms back to the starting position, maintaining control of the bands.
4. Standing External Cable Rotation
Standing External Rotation exercises are excellent for targeting and strengthening your rotator cuff. Unlike using a dumbbell, which tends to engage your biceps due to the half-curl position, a cable machine allows for better isolation of the infraspinatus muscles during the rotation.
How to perform:
- Stand sideways to the left of the cable machine and grip the handle with your right hand. Adjust the handle to the height of your upper abdomen so that your arm forms a 90-degree angle.
- Keep your elbow close to your side, maintain a straight back, relax your shoulders, and keep your head up.
- Rotate your shoulder to pull the cable across your body and outward as far as possible without moving your elbow or upper arm.
- Slowly return to the starting position, pausing for a one-count before your next repetition.
5. Cable Face Pulls
The face pulls. Probably the single best exercise you can do to strengthen your upper back and shoulders while improving mobility and stability. The only problem with face pulls is most people perform them incorrectly, especially if you want to hit your infraspinatus.
Many trainees will perform a face pull by only performing horizontal abduction or when the arms move back behind the body while the elbows are flared out, similar to a bent-over row. During the face pull, this is exaggerated, and the elbows are pulled back very high.
What you want to do is begin the movement with horizontal abduction. However, when your elbows are pulled back, you will simultaneously perform external rotation. At the end of the movement, the elbows will be back in line with one another at a 90-degree angle so that your hands are vertical.
You can perform these on the cable machine using a rope attachment. Or, if you have a dual pulley system, you can use single handles, which provide a lot of mobility. We have an awesome video so you can see what this looks like; it will make sense once you see it.
Infraspinatus Exercises Sets, Reps & Load
As mentioned, all of these infraspinatus exercises, especially the first four, will be performed with lightweight equipment. Use a small dumbbell that allows 8-15 reps. Remember that these four aren't strength-based but rather are done to maintain mobility, improve function, and provide conditioning to the muscle.
Things are a bit different when performing the face pull. We will use this exercise in two ways. The first is similar to the first four in that we'll use lightweight equipment for lightweight equipment for mobility or warming up.
The second method would be more of a strengthening role. We will place it in our training session and treat it as such. Still, it will be towards the end of the workout and use reps anywhere from 8 to 20. The main difference is the load and approaching failure. Remember to keep your scapula pulled back as you perform external rotation to hit the infraspinatus.
Build Your Iron-Clad Shoulder
The infraspinatus and rotator cuff might not be the sexiest muscle to train. But do you know what else isn't sexy? Not being able to perform any pressing movement because your shoulder hurts! Of course, things can happen when training, but by concentrating on training your infraspinatus preemptively, your chances of injury can be mitigated. That's sexy.
Check out our full collection of shoulder exercises!
References
- Minagawa, Hiroshi, et al. “Prevalence of Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Rotator Cuff Tears in the General Population: From Mass-Screening in One Village.” Journal of Orthopaedics, vol. 10, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 8–12, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768248/, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jor.2013.01.008.
- Qerama, Erisela, et al. “Occurrence of Myofascial Pain in Patients with Possible Carpal Tunnel Syndrome - a Single-Blinded Study.” European Journal of Pain, vol. 13, no. 6, July 2009, pp. 588–591, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpain.2008.07.009. Accessed 12 Nov. 2019.
- Ha, Sung-Min, et al. “Selective Activation of the Infraspinatus Muscle.” Journal of Athletic Training, vol. 48, no. 3, May 2013, pp. 346–352, https://doi.org/10.4085/1062-6050-48.2.18.
Garett Reid
Author