The ICC T20 World Cup is underway and thousands of throwing actions will take place over the next 4 weeks.

Did you know, at peak rotation, maximum humeral internal rotation velocity during throwing may reach 7500 to 7700 degrees per second (Seroyer et al 2010)? That’s approximately 4 times faster than a helicopter's rotor spins.

It’s no wonder then that some of the cricketers taking part in the ICC T20 World Cup this month need to have strong and functional rotator cuff muscles to generate and tolerate the forces involved in throwing.

How do the rotator cuff muscles work when throwing?

The above from Oyama 2012 illustrates the complexity of the throwing action and the demand on the tissues.

From this we can see that the shoulder forces acting on the shoulder work in a deceleration - acceleration - deceleration pattern. It may also be surprising to see that the rotator cuff works mostly to compress the shoulder joint and provide stability during these movements,...