Your shoulders are the joint with the widest range of motion in the body. It is able to move 360 degrees in rotation, 180 degrees up and down and can also move front to back and through elevation and depression. It’s able to do this because of a couple of important physiological structures…
It’s joint set up - it’s a ball and socket joint
It is acted upon by a lot of different muscles, ligaments and tendons
The trade off for a wide range of movement is an inherent lack of joint stability. In order to stabilise the shoulders we have to ensure that the muscles surrounding the joint are strong, well-balanced and are flexible enough to prevent shoulder impingement, which is a common shoulder complaint.
It’s not just lifting - modern life is a problem too!
Modern life sees us spend significant amounts of time in an internally-rotated shoulder position. This is where are shoulders are hunched forward and our pectorals become tight. The upper back isn’t engaged and becomes weaker.
This slouched posture is very common in offices - if you work in an office take a look around. Typing forces us to bring our shoulders around into internal rotation, so there’s a good chance you and a lot of your colleagues will be internally-rotated at the shoulder.
The other issue is driving - when your arms are holding a steering wheel it pulls the shoulders forward. This causes the chest to tighten as well.
As bad as all of this sounds, there’s a counter-balance measure to everything so you don’t need to worry - shoulder problems aren’t a certainty!
How exercise can cause or help the problem…
When the shoulders are internally rotated for an extended period of time, the chest becomes tight and the upper back becomes weak. This ‘pulls’ the shoulders forward and creates something called an ‘impingement’. Shoulder impingement is where the joint capsule is reduced in size, which causes the connective tissues to rub and become inflamed. This is a painful condition but it can be treated with corrective exercise.
If your upper body training plan isn’t balanced, shoulder impingement is very likely. So what do I mean by ‘balanced’?
A balanced upper training programme will see your shoulders work in mostly four different directions…
A vertical push (shoulder press for example)
A horizontal push (bench press or fly for example)
A vertical pull (pull up for example)
A horizontal pull (bent over row for example)
There’s additional exercises such as lat raises, then stability elements during exercises such as bicep curls, but largely those four movements will make up the bulk of the training.
If then, there’s too much pushing and not enough pulling, the chest and shoulders become tight, the upper back and rear deltoids become weak and the net result is the shoulders are pulled forward and shoulder impingement is a risk.
So how do we balance pushing and pulling?
It’s not as simple as do the same amount of pulling as you do pushing - because if you spend all day at a computer or driving, you’ve probably got a lot of chest tightness already going on. You’ll need to counterbalance this by doing a lot more pulling (especially horizontal) than pushing.
A good starting point would be 5:1 pulls to pushes. For every bench press or shoulder press rep, you’d do 5 reps of a pull. It could be something like this…
Bench Press 4 x 8
Single arm dumbbell row 4 x 10 (per side)
Bent over row 4 x 10
Pull ups 5 x 6
TRX rows 4 x 10
This would have the effect of helping to strengthen the upper back and rear deltoids, which would help to retract the shoulders and open up the joint cavity, reducing the possibility of impingement.
Making the shoulders bullet proof…
The more pulls than pushes advice is a great starting point, but if we want to progress our shoulder strength further, we can do some direct shoulder work. We know from research that shoulder exercises involving external rotation have solid therapeutic benefits, both preventing and curing shoulder pain.
If you suffer from shoulder pain or feel as though your training isn’t well-balanced enough, you could probably do a lot worse than spend a bit of time each week working directly on your shoulder strength.
External rotations, stability exercises, face pulls and thoracic spine mobility drills will all be helpful in preventing potential problems and curing existing problems. Combine that with a lot of chest stretching and you’ll save yourself a lot of money in physio bills!
If you’re in East London and would the AdMac Fitness personal trainers to train you, contact us on 07921465108 or email us at admacfitness@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
