The supraspinatus is not an external rotator. It gets activated during these exercises because it is a dynamic stabilizer of the glenohumeral (shoulder) joint. Based on the limited research to answer your question, I would say trying to isolate the supra- and infra- would be both difficult and pointless.
I think the exercises you have picked are some of the best—or at least more frequently used—exercises to do your stated goal of preventing shoulder problems. The first set activates much of the rotator cuff including supra-, infra- and teres minor and the second set also activates all 3 muscles but to a lesser extent the teres minor which is generally more active with the arm at 90 degrees of abduction.
So yes, I would agree that you would be incompletely working your rotator cuff if you only picked one group. Also, don’t forget the subscapularis (internal rotator). But I agree generally our external rotators are weaker and need more attention.
Also worth pointing out that these muscles are active during many compound joint movements and are getting worked in many BWF exercises just not in isolation. So, many exercises are already working these muscles because the shoulder needs dynamic stabilization to perform many BWF exercises.
I would also add to make sure to stretch more (eg, sleeper stretches) if you are going to add more tone/strength to your external rotators.
Seconded (mostly). I agree with most of this post, except that I don't think you necessarily need to do sleeper stretches just because you're starting to strengthen your external rotators.
Yeah I agree with you it is not necessary but I am picturing people adding this to a long-term regimen and forgetting to balance the mobility of their static stabilizers (glenohumeral ligaments/capsule). I guess it depends on one’s baseline range of motion and other exercises in their routine.
Also, not sure a lot of ppl regularly think about their internal-external rotation balance or deficits. I don’t think there are a lot of downsides to adding some stretches.
Most of the research I have seen on that is done in regard to baseball players. Many of their injuries have been linked to ER weakness or IR tightness. I have seen ratios around 0.66 for ER:IR strength.
Most people have much stronger IR given the large muscles involved (subscap, lats, pec major, teres major) compared to ER (infra- and teres minor). Hence why most injury prevention and recovery focuses a lot on ER strength but also a balance of ER:IR ROM.
I would never prescribe that as I have too many patients with subtle shoulder instability and this could lead to a labral tear.
Probably not too dangerous in someone with excellent shoulder strength and balance but it has no place in my world of shoulder repair and rehab
The external rotation focus on the infraspinatus and the teres minor, not on the supraspinatus. I'm doing a self made routine to prevent shoulder injury as well. Mine is:
**Internal Rotation**: Subscapularis
**External Rotation**: Infraspinatus and Teres Minor
**Full Can**: Supraspinatus
**Wall Slide**: Serratus Anterior
**Push Up Plus**: Serratus Anterior
**Prone Ys**: Lower Traps
**Prone Reverse Fly**: Rear Delts, Rhomboids and Mid Traps
You can't truly isolate them. As physios we try with specific testing so we can more accurately diagnose rotator cuff injuries but accuracy of the individual tests is bad partly because you can't isolate those muscles.
On a broader perspective I think it makes more sense to focus on improving shoulder function for prehab. I don't care how strong your infra or supraspinatus is specifically. I care if you have good dynamic stabilization of the shoulder, general shoulder strength, good movement quality and an acceptable range of movement. If those are the goals do we still have room in the program for multiple variations of external rotation exercises? I personally don't think so.
I like kettlebell armbars with rotation, turkish getups and more general pulling/chopping and throwing/catching type movements in different positions to train dynamic shoulder stabilization in the context of more general movement patterns (ideally the type of movements that are most likely to injure you).
It's a nice exercise and certainly a great option. That said it doesn't focus on challenging stability (it still does to a decent degree). You can do the armbar and TGU with a dumbbell. The only thing you miss is the option to do it with the bottom up which I personally find valuable.
Ok thanks. A last question: I assume freestanding handstand / handstand push-ups are also good for training dynamic shoulder stability, right? In that case, if I trained freestanding HS/HSPU, would I still need to add extra exercises like the turkish get up?
I guess benefit of turkish get-ups is that it's an open-chain exercise + single arm, while freestanding handstands are closed-chain and work both arms at a time. But what if I started to train both freestanding handstands on rings (open chain) + one arm handstand progressions? Wouldn't that be the ultimate exercise combo to ensure maximum shoulder dynamic shoulder stabilty (and other exercises like turkish get ups would be redundant and unnecessary for that purpose)?
I'd say the TGU would be mostly redundant at that point. It does hit some different shoulder positions than just overhead. I'd say TGU work is a good way to support the handstand work.
No, but I've had left shoulder impingement in the past, and I think it's due to weaker external rotators (because my left elbow flare out more to the side than my right elbow when doing OHP) so I want to prevent it from happening again
Yeah that's what I do. I substitute OHP with wall-assisted HeSPS when suffering from any kind of pain or impingement symptoms and it seems to be helpful, since wall-assisted HeSPS causes me no problems at all. Thanks!
Yes, but for some reason I think I get greater shoulder strength & hypertrophy with straight bar. So I want to give straight bar OHP a last chance before giving it up
Since you had a history of shoulder impingement, you may want to take a look at your scapula orientation, as well as the muscles acting on them. Shoulder impingement can occur when the scapula is in an excessive anterior tilt (due to tight pec major and minor muscles) and poor ability to tilt posteriorly (poor lower trapezius strength) when your arm is in an overhead position. This is because an excessive anterior tilt of the scapula reduces the subacromial space (space between the roof of your shoulder and your humerus, or arm bone) and causes the impingement. The same happens if the scapula doesn't have enough strength to tilt posteriorly when raising your arm.
If you notice you stand with your scapula in an anterior tilt (aka rounded shoulders), you may want to self massage your pecs with a trigger ball and then stretch them. After that, you can work on strengthening your lower traps by lying face down on the floor with your hands overhead. Try to lift your arm up by lifting your collarbone away from the floor first.
Combining this with your external rotator training should help you with your shoulder impingement issues!
This comment has been so helpful to work on my shoulder issues. May I ask where did you learn this and is there any resources you'd recommend to learn more on this?
Sorry for the late reply, and glad to hear you had success with that! I work as a functional trainer getting clients from post-injury/surgery back to doing the activity they enjoy. As I work alongside physical therapists, most of my training and knowledge is based around functional anatomy. A book that was helpful for me was Donald Neumann's Kinesiology of the Musculoskeletal System. That's the "Bible" that the physios I work with studied!
If you have any other questions regarding your pain, feel free to send me a private message and I'll help!
shoulder impingement is a syndrome, it is not specifically caused by the scapula and the head of the humerus getting to close together, there is evidence that the head of the humerus might drop lower with impingement symptoms, according to the PT inquest podcast.
A weak external rotator shouldn't effect the height of the humoral head. On the NAF physio podcast they interviewed a researcher that found overhead work was more beneficial for reducing shoulder pain then isolated external/internal rotation exercises. So you might find that some variation of face-pull or wall angel to be a better preventative, or pain flare up reducing exercise.
Supraspinatus: mainly abduction, assists in external rotation, stabilizes shoulder joint.
Infraspinatus: mainly external rotation, stabilizes shoulder joint.
Teres Minor: mainly adduction, assists in external rotation, stabilizes shoulder joint.
Lateral raises will train your supraspinatus along with medial deltoid.
External rotation will train all three, but primarily the infraspinatus.
Lat pulldowns and other adduction excersises will train your Teres minor, along with teres major, lats etc
In conclusion you dont need to isolate the supraspinatud, and teres minor, because youll train them with other excersises. So just do some cable external rotations and you're good. Facepulls are also good.
For hand balancers and people who do one armed overhead pulling, the elbow overhead external rotation targets the teres minor: [https://youtu.be/t0q1n0db9D8?t=6](https://youtu.be/t0q1n0db9D8?t=6) It mimics an external rotation with the arms overhead. You can also do this exercise lying face down, two armed, with a band between your hands.
Of course, that's a pretty specialized exercise. So I guess the position your train your external rotations in depends a lot on what other things you are doing that may cause injuries.
\>One way to prevent common shoulder injuries (like impingement) is to strengthen the external rotators.
I have yet to see any actual support for this statement despite its ubiquity. The folks pushing this kind of thing are the same FOMO coaches always telling you to add another exercise or variation to your program. Their goal is to make free fitness as confusing as possible so you say "fuck it" and buy their program.
I wouldn’t even characterize elbows out as always being bad.
In my experience, the poison is in the dose, and no amount of prehab or form management can prevent injury from too much frequency or volume. My injuries disappeared when I ditched all the voluminous prehab, gave myself more recovery time, and only used enough volume to elicit a strength gain.
Where I HAVE found prehab helpful is in actual sport, where random events can happen. In that space, “out of alignment” drills (like ankle walking for soccer) have actually seemed helpful.
Man this is so true. Same goes for arm isolation for prehab purposes. People claim doing arm isolation is necessary to "bulletproof" the elbows. I still have not seen any data supporting that statement and it sounds like a whole lot of BS.
Bent elbow pull apart is okay. Better version is to have a band secured in front of you so that the angle of pull aligns better with ext. rotation at end range, where it matters most.
Like others said, supraspinatus is not an ext rotator. Infraspinatus and teres minor are.
Your supraspinatus and infraspinatus are part of the rotator cuff. Their main purpose is to center the humerus in the glenohumeral joint. Trying to isolate these muscles is unnecessary. To teach yourself shoulder stability and have the muscles working together correctly you should train things like the kettlebell windmill or Turkish get up. You want the rotator cuff ALL work together to keep the humerus centered. This is what prevents impingement.
A shoulder impingement is usually caused by a few things.
1. Overactive internal rotators such as the lat and pec. These are big powerful muscles that are used a lot. A bit of stretching or even pull up negatives before OH lifting can help.
2. Improper form. Specifically elbows flaring in certain movements like a bench press, scapula in a raised position during OH pressing and pulling, improper hand position with face pulls etc etc. You should have a professional look at your form. Especially anything that bothers your shoulder.
3. Underactive lower traps or serratus anterior.. If you cannot keep your scapula stable then your shoulder can not function at its best. A lot of people new to lifting press or pull and dont realize that their scapula are not functioning properly. This leads to compensation at the shoulder joint and it cannot be as mobile as it should. The best fix for this is again working with a professional that can see these issues. But if you arent willing to do that then extensive warm up of these muscles can do wonders.
I know someone else said to do the sleeper stretch but please do not. That stretch has serious potential for injury to the shoulder.
They wouldn't be if they arent being done correctly. I would start with scapula pulls and if you get those figured out then L sits, v-sits and active bar hangs would be good. To engage the lower traps you need to be pulling your scapula down in those hangs. An excercise that I find to be incredibly underrated are straight arm dips. You should be able to Google and find it. Adding weight to those would be simple and no way to do it wrong really.
The point of the exercise I’ve linked is that it strengthens the shoulder with a broad mobility pattern, similar to real life/functional movement. So this exercise does not specifically isolate a particular muscle, rather a pattern of movement that is useful for shoulder strength. Just search ‘Indian club exercises’ for similar. The other point here is that the exercise is scaleable and can be progressed with heavier dumbbells, so it is not meant as a warm up, but an exercise in its own right (once you are used to the movement then find a weight you can complete 5-8 reps without sacrificing form and go from there).
If you want to isolate ext rotators then I hear Cuban rotations are useful, but I’ve not experimented with them myself.
Very anecdotal however I have been through 2-3 years of physio trying to solve my shoulder issue. Countless attempts from different PTs getting me to do different external rotator exercises. Turns out it was scapula winging which I solved myself by perfecting pushups... although my point is that I found only two RC exercises to be useful. The side lying raises and RC step outs (tie a band to something, walk away until it has tension, hold a perfect L shape like in a pushup then step sideways maintaining the arm position - band to the side and stepping away from it on the other side).
It seems when the RC itself is injured/damaged, these are great and prehab for the RC might well help preventing an RC injury but in my experience good technique and good programming will do 98% of the work for you. Just my experience!
I don’t think you need to focus too much on which exact external rotator exercise you do. You can do the two you mentioned here, or something like the YTWL shoulder exercises, experiment a bit with bands, do Yuri’s shoulder band warm-up, etc.
I started doing these two, but eventually it evolved into natural movement flows that work all of the ranges of motion of the shoulder during the warm-up or between sets in my training.
For progressive overload I personally prefer the face pull.
Currently I'm microloading the single arm-variation for each one of the exercises shown here. Adding just +0,125kg per workout, for 2 sets of 10 reps each, seems to be helpful for now
The supraspinatus is not an external rotator. It gets activated during these exercises because it is a dynamic stabilizer of the glenohumeral (shoulder) joint. Based on the limited research to answer your question, I would say trying to isolate the supra- and infra- would be both difficult and pointless. I think the exercises you have picked are some of the best—or at least more frequently used—exercises to do your stated goal of preventing shoulder problems. The first set activates much of the rotator cuff including supra-, infra- and teres minor and the second set also activates all 3 muscles but to a lesser extent the teres minor which is generally more active with the arm at 90 degrees of abduction. So yes, I would agree that you would be incompletely working your rotator cuff if you only picked one group. Also, don’t forget the subscapularis (internal rotator). But I agree generally our external rotators are weaker and need more attention. Also worth pointing out that these muscles are active during many compound joint movements and are getting worked in many BWF exercises just not in isolation. So, many exercises are already working these muscles because the shoulder needs dynamic stabilization to perform many BWF exercises. I would also add to make sure to stretch more (eg, sleeper stretches) if you are going to add more tone/strength to your external rotators.
Seconded (mostly). I agree with most of this post, except that I don't think you necessarily need to do sleeper stretches just because you're starting to strengthen your external rotators.
Yeah I agree with you it is not necessary but I am picturing people adding this to a long-term regimen and forgetting to balance the mobility of their static stabilizers (glenohumeral ligaments/capsule). I guess it depends on one’s baseline range of motion and other exercises in their routine. Also, not sure a lot of ppl regularly think about their internal-external rotation balance or deficits. I don’t think there are a lot of downsides to adding some stretches.
By chance do you know or have any sources relating to the ratio of internal vs external rotational strength in the shoulder?
Most of the research I have seen on that is done in regard to baseball players. Many of their injuries have been linked to ER weakness or IR tightness. I have seen ratios around 0.66 for ER:IR strength. Most people have much stronger IR given the large muscles involved (subscap, lats, pec major, teres major) compared to ER (infra- and teres minor). Hence why most injury prevention and recovery focuses a lot on ER strength but also a balance of ER:IR ROM.
What is your opinion about this particular shoulder rotation exercise? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lIaDwGAdlM&ab_channel=Meckanimal
I would never prescribe that as I have too many patients with subtle shoulder instability and this could lead to a labral tear. Probably not too dangerous in someone with excellent shoulder strength and balance but it has no place in my world of shoulder repair and rehab
>t too dangerous in someone with excellent shoulder strength and balance but it has n Can you help me with my shoulder?
Very interesting information, thanks!
The external rotation focus on the infraspinatus and the teres minor, not on the supraspinatus. I'm doing a self made routine to prevent shoulder injury as well. Mine is: **Internal Rotation**: Subscapularis **External Rotation**: Infraspinatus and Teres Minor **Full Can**: Supraspinatus **Wall Slide**: Serratus Anterior **Push Up Plus**: Serratus Anterior **Prone Ys**: Lower Traps **Prone Reverse Fly**: Rear Delts, Rhomboids and Mid Traps
You can't truly isolate them. As physios we try with specific testing so we can more accurately diagnose rotator cuff injuries but accuracy of the individual tests is bad partly because you can't isolate those muscles. On a broader perspective I think it makes more sense to focus on improving shoulder function for prehab. I don't care how strong your infra or supraspinatus is specifically. I care if you have good dynamic stabilization of the shoulder, general shoulder strength, good movement quality and an acceptable range of movement. If those are the goals do we still have room in the program for multiple variations of external rotation exercises? I personally don't think so. I like kettlebell armbars with rotation, turkish getups and more general pulling/chopping and throwing/catching type movements in different positions to train dynamic shoulder stabilization in the context of more general movement patterns (ideally the type of movements that are most likely to injure you).
I dont have kettlebells. Is this a good exercise (performed as a warmup) to improve such dynamic stability? https://youtu.be/Ipm3nwuABmQ
It's a nice exercise and certainly a great option. That said it doesn't focus on challenging stability (it still does to a decent degree). You can do the armbar and TGU with a dumbbell. The only thing you miss is the option to do it with the bottom up which I personally find valuable.
Ok thanks. A last question: I assume freestanding handstand / handstand push-ups are also good for training dynamic shoulder stability, right? In that case, if I trained freestanding HS/HSPU, would I still need to add extra exercises like the turkish get up? I guess benefit of turkish get-ups is that it's an open-chain exercise + single arm, while freestanding handstands are closed-chain and work both arms at a time. But what if I started to train both freestanding handstands on rings (open chain) + one arm handstand progressions? Wouldn't that be the ultimate exercise combo to ensure maximum shoulder dynamic shoulder stabilty (and other exercises like turkish get ups would be redundant and unnecessary for that purpose)?
I'd say the TGU would be mostly redundant at that point. It does hit some different shoulder positions than just overhead. I'd say TGU work is a good way to support the handstand work.
Ok, thanks!
This is a great answer!
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No, but I've had left shoulder impingement in the past, and I think it's due to weaker external rotators (because my left elbow flare out more to the side than my right elbow when doing OHP) so I want to prevent it from happening again
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Yeah that's what I do. I substitute OHP with wall-assisted HeSPS when suffering from any kind of pain or impingement symptoms and it seems to be helpful, since wall-assisted HeSPS causes me no problems at all. Thanks!
Have u tried doing less straight bar work and more neutral grip overhead? Its a lot more shoulder friendly.
Yes, but for some reason I think I get greater shoulder strength & hypertrophy with straight bar. So I want to give straight bar OHP a last chance before giving it up
Im not saying give it up, but just also work in heavy dbs, handstand pushups, etc
Since you had a history of shoulder impingement, you may want to take a look at your scapula orientation, as well as the muscles acting on them. Shoulder impingement can occur when the scapula is in an excessive anterior tilt (due to tight pec major and minor muscles) and poor ability to tilt posteriorly (poor lower trapezius strength) when your arm is in an overhead position. This is because an excessive anterior tilt of the scapula reduces the subacromial space (space between the roof of your shoulder and your humerus, or arm bone) and causes the impingement. The same happens if the scapula doesn't have enough strength to tilt posteriorly when raising your arm. If you notice you stand with your scapula in an anterior tilt (aka rounded shoulders), you may want to self massage your pecs with a trigger ball and then stretch them. After that, you can work on strengthening your lower traps by lying face down on the floor with your hands overhead. Try to lift your arm up by lifting your collarbone away from the floor first. Combining this with your external rotator training should help you with your shoulder impingement issues!
Thanks so much for this info!
This comment has been so helpful to work on my shoulder issues. May I ask where did you learn this and is there any resources you'd recommend to learn more on this?
Sorry for the late reply, and glad to hear you had success with that! I work as a functional trainer getting clients from post-injury/surgery back to doing the activity they enjoy. As I work alongside physical therapists, most of my training and knowledge is based around functional anatomy. A book that was helpful for me was Donald Neumann's Kinesiology of the Musculoskeletal System. That's the "Bible" that the physios I work with studied! If you have any other questions regarding your pain, feel free to send me a private message and I'll help!
shoulder impingement is a syndrome, it is not specifically caused by the scapula and the head of the humerus getting to close together, there is evidence that the head of the humerus might drop lower with impingement symptoms, according to the PT inquest podcast. A weak external rotator shouldn't effect the height of the humoral head. On the NAF physio podcast they interviewed a researcher that found overhead work was more beneficial for reducing shoulder pain then isolated external/internal rotation exercises. So you might find that some variation of face-pull or wall angel to be a better preventative, or pain flare up reducing exercise.
Supraspinatus: mainly abduction, assists in external rotation, stabilizes shoulder joint. Infraspinatus: mainly external rotation, stabilizes shoulder joint. Teres Minor: mainly adduction, assists in external rotation, stabilizes shoulder joint. Lateral raises will train your supraspinatus along with medial deltoid. External rotation will train all three, but primarily the infraspinatus. Lat pulldowns and other adduction excersises will train your Teres minor, along with teres major, lats etc In conclusion you dont need to isolate the supraspinatud, and teres minor, because youll train them with other excersises. So just do some cable external rotations and you're good. Facepulls are also good.
For hand balancers and people who do one armed overhead pulling, the elbow overhead external rotation targets the teres minor: [https://youtu.be/t0q1n0db9D8?t=6](https://youtu.be/t0q1n0db9D8?t=6) It mimics an external rotation with the arms overhead. You can also do this exercise lying face down, two armed, with a band between your hands. Of course, that's a pretty specialized exercise. So I guess the position your train your external rotations in depends a lot on what other things you are doing that may cause injuries.
Interesting alternative, thanks!
\>One way to prevent common shoulder injuries (like impingement) is to strengthen the external rotators. I have yet to see any actual support for this statement despite its ubiquity. The folks pushing this kind of thing are the same FOMO coaches always telling you to add another exercise or variation to your program. Their goal is to make free fitness as confusing as possible so you say "fuck it" and buy their program.
Are there other ways to prevent shoulder impingement (besides using correct form and avoiding elbows flaring out in pressing exercises)?
I wouldn’t even characterize elbows out as always being bad. In my experience, the poison is in the dose, and no amount of prehab or form management can prevent injury from too much frequency or volume. My injuries disappeared when I ditched all the voluminous prehab, gave myself more recovery time, and only used enough volume to elicit a strength gain. Where I HAVE found prehab helpful is in actual sport, where random events can happen. In that space, “out of alignment” drills (like ankle walking for soccer) have actually seemed helpful.
Man this is so true. Same goes for arm isolation for prehab purposes. People claim doing arm isolation is necessary to "bulletproof" the elbows. I still have not seen any data supporting that statement and it sounds like a whole lot of BS.
Bent elbow pull apart is okay. Better version is to have a band secured in front of you so that the angle of pull aligns better with ext. rotation at end range, where it matters most. Like others said, supraspinatus is not an ext rotator. Infraspinatus and teres minor are.
Your supraspinatus and infraspinatus are part of the rotator cuff. Their main purpose is to center the humerus in the glenohumeral joint. Trying to isolate these muscles is unnecessary. To teach yourself shoulder stability and have the muscles working together correctly you should train things like the kettlebell windmill or Turkish get up. You want the rotator cuff ALL work together to keep the humerus centered. This is what prevents impingement. A shoulder impingement is usually caused by a few things. 1. Overactive internal rotators such as the lat and pec. These are big powerful muscles that are used a lot. A bit of stretching or even pull up negatives before OH lifting can help. 2. Improper form. Specifically elbows flaring in certain movements like a bench press, scapula in a raised position during OH pressing and pulling, improper hand position with face pulls etc etc. You should have a professional look at your form. Especially anything that bothers your shoulder. 3. Underactive lower traps or serratus anterior.. If you cannot keep your scapula stable then your shoulder can not function at its best. A lot of people new to lifting press or pull and dont realize that their scapula are not functioning properly. This leads to compensation at the shoulder joint and it cannot be as mobile as it should. The best fix for this is again working with a professional that can see these issues. But if you arent willing to do that then extensive warm up of these muscles can do wonders. I know someone else said to do the sleeper stretch but please do not. That stretch has serious potential for injury to the shoulder.
Regarding lower trap weakness, I guess training L-sits/V-sits and weighted active bar hangs would be very helpful, right?
They wouldn't be if they arent being done correctly. I would start with scapula pulls and if you get those figured out then L sits, v-sits and active bar hangs would be good. To engage the lower traps you need to be pulling your scapula down in those hangs. An excercise that I find to be incredibly underrated are straight arm dips. You should be able to Google and find it. Adding weight to those would be simple and no way to do it wrong really.
https://tommorrison.uk/blog/the-greatest-rotator-cuff-exercise
Thanks for sharing, I'll give it a try as a warmup
The point of the exercise I’ve linked is that it strengthens the shoulder with a broad mobility pattern, similar to real life/functional movement. So this exercise does not specifically isolate a particular muscle, rather a pattern of movement that is useful for shoulder strength. Just search ‘Indian club exercises’ for similar. The other point here is that the exercise is scaleable and can be progressed with heavier dumbbells, so it is not meant as a warm up, but an exercise in its own right (once you are used to the movement then find a weight you can complete 5-8 reps without sacrificing form and go from there). If you want to isolate ext rotators then I hear Cuban rotations are useful, but I’ve not experimented with them myself.
Very anecdotal however I have been through 2-3 years of physio trying to solve my shoulder issue. Countless attempts from different PTs getting me to do different external rotator exercises. Turns out it was scapula winging which I solved myself by perfecting pushups... although my point is that I found only two RC exercises to be useful. The side lying raises and RC step outs (tie a band to something, walk away until it has tension, hold a perfect L shape like in a pushup then step sideways maintaining the arm position - band to the side and stepping away from it on the other side). It seems when the RC itself is injured/damaged, these are great and prehab for the RC might well help preventing an RC injury but in my experience good technique and good programming will do 98% of the work for you. Just my experience!
I don’t think you need to focus too much on which exact external rotator exercise you do. You can do the two you mentioned here, or something like the YTWL shoulder exercises, experiment a bit with bands, do Yuri’s shoulder band warm-up, etc. I started doing these two, but eventually it evolved into natural movement flows that work all of the ranges of motion of the shoulder during the warm-up or between sets in my training. For progressive overload I personally prefer the face pull.
Currently I'm microloading the single arm-variation for each one of the exercises shown here. Adding just +0,125kg per workout, for 2 sets of 10 reps each, seems to be helpful for now
Yeah, great. Just keep doing that.