Shoulder strengthening exercises
Senior Physiotherapist, Founder and Director · Registered with the AHPRA (PHY0002060505)
Sports Rehabilitation · Musculoskeletal Problems · Sport Injuries · Neck pain, headaches, dizziness, jaw related neck pain
Kenny is a physiotherapist with over 18 years’ experience in musculoskeletal and sports rehabilitation. He has a focus on identifying the contributing factors behind pain and treating complex presentations including chronic spine pain, neck and headache disorders, jaw dysfunction, and persistent sports injuries. His approach combines manual therapy, dry needling, and active rehabilitation with strong emphasis on education and patient outcomes. He is also a GEMt dry needling teacher and demonstrator. As an endurance athlete with experience in marathons, Ironman, CrossFit, basketball, and ultra endurance events, he brings a performance athlete's perspective to rehabilitation and load management.
Last reviewed: 09 September 2025
In the above video, we will run you through a shoulder strengthening program, targeted specifically if you have any shoulder pain or weakness within your shoulder.
These are the 3 exercises we would recommend:
1 . Rotator cuff strengthening exercise: external rotation
To perform this one, you're going to start by holding a theraband in your hand, making a nice fist, pointing up at the roof and keeping your elbow nice and close to your side. You're going to gently rotate your arm outwards, stopping at about 30 to 45 degrees.
For this exercise we're looking to engage that rotator cuff, so we want to make sure that there's tension on the theraband the entire time and we're looking at repeating this for 10 reps and repeating that three times.
2. Rotator cuff strengthening exercise: internal rotation
This exercise is very similar; the only difference is we're doing it the opposite way. So we're going to have you holding it in that same hand with the same grip and you're just going to start by pulling from outside to inside, towards the belly button.
For both of these exercises, you can have the theraband anchored on a doorknob or something roughly about this height, belly button height.
3. Straight arm pull back
For this exercise, you're going to hold a theraband in a closed fist pointing down, making sure your elbow is nice and straight as you do that. Then you're going to extend your fist so it comes straight past the hip.
All of these exercises should be performed 10 times and repeated three times.
If you have any questions or if there's anything that you're unsure about please feel free to come into the clinic for a visit or contact us.