The Cuban Press

Regarding the recent discussion about Cuban Presses and their worth as a prehab/rehab exercise I've given them a try after coming back from a shoulder injury. I'm just unsure about my performance of them, my anterior delts seem to be performing the grunt of the work. Is this normal? Or does it indicate poor form (or too great a load)?

Regards,

Ed

Hello Ed,

I believe that this strengthens the external rotation of your rotator cuff and the builds mainly the anterior delts.

The weight should not be heavy at all; concentrating more on technique.

http://www.exrx.net/Muscles/DeltoidAnterior.html

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/strong_and_healthy_shoulders&cr=

So to recap it targets the anterior delt and infraspinatus.

http://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3936&p=30190 Ido Portal's thoughts on the Cuban Press besides the Charles Poliquin reccomendation (who seems to have invented the Cuban Press name).

Target being 1/2BW for 5 reps at a 4020 rhythm(?!). That is with a bar though, not DB. Or 9% of BP with 8 reps. Frequently I see rep ranges of 6-10 but never anything lower.

I don't think I've ever gone higher than 10's or 15's.

9% of my BP would be around 20lbs. Yeah, my bench needs work, not that I want to work it but it should be higher.

The middle part of the cuban press hits up the infraspinatus and teres minor of the rotator cuff.

It's a good prehab exercise.

What about strength wise does the cuban press have any strength carry overs or is just a prehab exercise?I thought it was for just building shoulder strength.

It does build strength - gymnastics training relies heavily on internal rotation of the shoulders and the Cuban Press is one of the exercises that will help build the strength in the external rotators that is necessary for maintaining a healthy balance in the shoulder joint. The recommendation is to build up to a 50% bodyweight Cuban Press.

'Prehab' does not mean it's just a light exercise you do to warm up or cool down - prehabbing entails the correction of muscle imbalances and the improvement of joint mobility and stability. It sort of takes place in the background because they don't constitute the 'maximum strength' part or full stretching/mobility part of your workout but that does not mean you don't progress over time - the weight (or band resistance) that you use will increase, as will your joint ROM and stability. But the goal of prehab is slightly different from the goal of the actual 'work' sets.

the external rotators of the shoulder, only 2 muscles that are very small, get out of balanced because the internal rotators are so much bigger. Pulling and pressing use internal rotators and there are 5 different muscle groups (I can't remember exactly as I was just reading up on it last week).

Basically, internal rotators get used a lot and are big muscles but the opposite is true for the external rotators.

1 - I hurt my dominant shoulder during bench press.

I think it was because of unbalance between my pulling and pressing ability (56kg at pulling rows / 76 kg at pressing bench) and never ever done anything for external rotators. Actually I remember being unable to throw with power without feeling hurt since I was 13.

Even during FL training it hurt in a subtle way. Does somebody think my reasoning behind the problem can be right?

2 - So I'm slowly doing rehab and started doing cuban presses since, after 20 days of nothing I did 3x6 with 2kg at very slow tempo for a week. Feels not pleasant neither damaging.

My other question is, apart for being very suspicious about the half bodyweight suggestion (I can't curl for reps that weight!)

should I be like in this position with my lats?

it feels like using my internal shoulder muscles more.

PS for mods: Alot of the cuban press talking is on the "superman is alive" discussion, but is difficult to access searching with google. It should be moved here!

I believe you should pull your shoulder blades together, not apart, during cuban presses. So in the bottom you'd go full ROM and let your shoulders roll forward, then retract scapula and keep them retracted during the rotation upwards. This is purely based on my experience with the lift.

Should you try to keep the shoulders unshruged? When i do i cant get my elbows nearly as high as they should.