like external rotation shoulder exercises, they are a fairly unthoughtful application of an exercise designed for a different sport.
Expand on this please! Why would they not be helpful for climbing?
Exercises are rarely completely unhelpful but some are better than others. In general, an effective rehab. programme should focus on exercises which progress towards the functional activity as quickly as pain allows. Rehab.ing a pulley injury you might start by hanging partial bodyweight through an open-handed grip, then gradually increase the load and degree of crimp until you're hanging full bodyweight (or more) off a full crimp.
The same goes for shoulder rehab., from which perspective climbing is:
- high load (bodyweight through one arm frequently).
- closed-chain (the hand is fixed and the body moves, most of the time)
Anatomically:
- The arm is usually elevated
- The cuff and scapular muscles co-contract strongly with little rotation (more rotation in comp. style bouldering or Off The Wagon). Part of the problem is the rotator cuff is a misnomer; their job is primarily to compress and stabilise the joint rather than rotate. Even wikipedia gets this right.
You'd like a shoulder rehab. exercise to be specific: tick as many of those boxes as pain allows. Theraband exercises with your elbow by your side are open chain and low-load, with only part of the cuff working - not co-contracting, and a lot of rotation going on. It's the opposite of what happens when you're climbing. It might be a great exercise if you're a tennis player or want to throw a ball - open chain, low load, high speed, high rotation activities - and my guess is the standard theraband exercises were invented for ball-sports and have been rather unthinkingly applied to climbers.
I can see why you might not be able to do overhead work initially if you have an acutely painful shoulder but exercises like side-planks which encourage rotator cuff co-contraction are probably more useful than theraband rotation. Progress to hand-stands, or military presses if you prefer free-weights.
