Over the next few weeks, I’ll be covering the four muscles of the Rotator Cuff: the muscles that stabilize your shoulder joint and help move your arm up and down, and rotate, as well. Without the ROT cuff muscles, you wouldn’t be able to do a whole lot with your arms.

We’ll start with the Supraspinatus (soo-pra-spin-ah-tus), a chunky little muscle that lies atop the scapula, underneath the upper trapezius muscle fibers (we covered the Trapezius last time).

(Lenni Armstrong Illustration)

The Supraspinatus works together with the Deltoid (the broad muscle that covers your shoulder joint, like a shoulder pad) to raise your arm away from your body to the side.

This little muscle can become cranky when the deltoid isn’t pulling its weight, and even when the wrist extensors along the lower arm (we covered those muscles in a #MuscleMonday) are not performing optimally. Like the pec minor and levator scapula, it’s a small muscle that sometimes works a little too hard.

And sometimes, the supraspinatus really needs to be strengthened in concert with the entire ROT cuff. If you’re having serious shoulder issues, I highly recommend getting your ROT cuff, neck, and arm muscles assessed by someone who can do muscle testing, and not just manually released via ‪#‎massage‬ or other modalities, though that can be very useful, too.

I hope this info proves useful and interesting! Please leave your comments and questions below, and ‘like’ and ‘share’ so others with ROT cuff muscles can benefit!

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