My latest program is available now and is designed to improve the motion in your shoulders. The goal is not to just improve the amount of shoulder ROM, I want to improve the QUALITY of your movement.
The program is available here Save My Shoulders
Quality is subjective, but we can get closer to the target with the the help of biomechanics. The issue I see 9/10 times is a short and/or stiff muscle that affects the ability of the shoulder blade to upwardly rotate (UR). The way I improve UR is to use the big muscles of the shoulder girdle (lats, pecs) to STABILIZE, then move the arm through those full ranges of motion.
If you aren’t stabilizing, you aren’t actually improving the mechanics. Instead, you are just feeding more into the issue, making the shrugging more dominant.
What do I mean by stabililizing?
Here’s a video I used in a recent tweet. Stabilizing just means create tension in all the right places so the scaps are free to do their job. Let’s break down the points of performance I care about.
Knees up - this flattens the low back and locks the ribcage down. Now ALL of the movement is coming from the shoulder girdle.
“Make the bar shorter” is how you create pec tension. My hands aren’t moving, but I’m exerting a force IN on the bar, like the arrows. When you do this, you’ll feel the pecs engage. You’ll also get engagement of a bunch of other muscles I like to get involved in moving your arms overhead.
Reach overhead SLOW - REACHING is how you get scap upward rotation and some elevation. SLOW is how you exaggerate the eccentric since you actually want to challenge the tissues. You can load this up with whatever you can tolerate as long as you can keep tension in the right places
Summary
To improve ROM, you HAVE to load through that ENTIRE ROM. Eccentrics are the most effective way. I always try to prioritize QUALITY over QUANTITY. Going after quanitity is a great way to make sure the WRONG muscles are doing the work.