While it may not be as impressive-looking as strapping plates around your waist and doing pull-ups until the cows come home, the simple face pull is a staple exercise for building a set of strong, robust, and muscular shoulders while targeting the multiple muscles that makeup your entire upper back.

While most rowing movements target larger back muscles like the lats and most shoulder exercises involve pressing which may aggravate joint issues, the face pull gives attention where it’s most needed. Here’s how to get the very best out of this reliable movement. 

Face Pull

• How to Do the Face Pull
• Face Pull Mistakes to Avoid
• How to Progress the Face Pull
• Benefits of the Face Pull
• Muscles Worked by the Face Pull
• How to Program the Face Pull
• Face Pull Variations
• Frequently Asked Questions

How to Do the Face Pull

The face pull is a type of rowing exercise, performed standing in front of an adjustable cable pulley. A successful and efficient face pull shares the workload between your traps and shoulders, while minimizing assistance from your biceps. To pull this off, you need to nail the grip, arm position, and cable path.

Step 1 — Proper Height with Proper Grip

Set a cable pulley at eye-level and attach a rope handle. Getting the proper cable height is critical to engage the target muscles. Grab the rope handle with your palms down, your palms facing back toward you, and your knuckles facing each other.

Form Tip: If the pulley is set too high or too low, you’ll change the focus of the exercise away with different muscle recruitment. This can sometimes be done deliberately, to intentionally recruit a variety of muscles, but the basic and most efficient setting is roughly in-line with your eyes.

Step 2 — Stretch to Start

Step back from the pulley far enough to allow your arms to fully straighten. The slack should be taken out of the cable without the weights lifting from the stack. Start with your shoulders protracted (rounded forward). This will put your traps and rhomboids (upper back muscles) into a stretch, which helps to build mobility and strength. (1)

Form Tip: If you feel yourself being pulled forward and you’re too unstable, you can use a staggered or split stance with one foot in front of the other, or put one foot up on a sturdy support like the edge of a bench. This will let you focus your energy on the pulling motion rather than fighting to stay upright.

Step 3 — Pull to Your Face

Pull the weight straight toward your face, at eye-level, by driving the dorsal (back) side of your hands and forearms back behind you. As you reach the top position, feel your shoulder blades naturally move down to your back pockets. Don’t let your shoulders shrug up. Do not overfocus on pulling with your shoulder blades or overexaggerate the motion, because other back muscles should be involved in the movement.

In the finished position, your fists should be beside your temples and your elbows should be level with your shoulders. You should look like a bodybuilder doing a “double biceps pose.” Focus on feeling your back and shoulders flexing, not your arms.

Form Tip: Do not let your trunk “tip backwards” as you pull. Your body should remain upright as you pull and reach the finished position. If you feel your glutes or lower back contracting significantly, you may be leaning too far backward.

Step 4 — Return to the Stretch

After a brief pause in the top position, control the weight as you straighten your arms and reach forward. Make sure to fully extend your arms and protract your shoulder blades toward the pulley. Keep your feet stationary and your upper body vertical.

Form Tip: Lower the weight at a slightly slower speed to keep control. Don’t allow the plates to slam onto the weight stack.

Face Pull Mistakes to Avoid

The face pull is often performed with some common errors which reduce its effectiveness. To keep tension on the target muscles and build strength and mobility, be sure to stay focused throughout each repetition.

Going Too Heavy

Trying to use too much load with a face pull will make it really hard to recruit the right muscles. Instead, it becomes a face pull/curl/body heave combo that misses a lot of the benefits of this exercise and adds unnecessary risk.

Turning the exercise into a momentum-based, full-body lift by swinging your torso only increases strain on your lower back and decreases tension on your relatively smaller upper back.

Avoid it: Don’t even think about using the full weight stack. Stick to a weight that’s challenging for at least 10 or more repetitions. That should allow you to target your back and shoulders without needing to swing your body or sacrifice technique to move the weight.

Pulling with Your Arms

Focusing only on the “face” part of “face pull” will usually result in doing a weird rope hammer curl to bring the handles toward your face. That will turn a very good upper back and shoulder exercise into a very awkward an inefficient biceps exercise.

If your biceps are fatiguing and reaching muscular failure before your back or shoulder muscles, reduce the weight and re-evaluate your technique.

Avoid it: Focus on pulling with your back and shoulders instead of “curling” the weight toward you. In the top position, make sure the dorsum (backs) of your hands and forearms are facing away from you, not up toward the ceiling.

Too Much Body Movement

It’s sometimes tempting to cheat the face pull and reduce the range of motion by leaning your body back to start the movement and quickly leaning forward to “meet” the weight, rather than keeping your body still and staying relatively strict.

This issue often occurs when the load of the cable is too much for your spine extensors (lower back) to resist. When you can’t keep a stable core, it’s not uncommon to recruit more muscles to make the exercise easier.

Avoid it: Either decrease the load to reduce the challenge to your core stability, brace your foot on a stable bench or box, or sit with your chest against a vertical support (like an upright bench) to provide a more stable pulling position.

How to Progress the Face Pull

The face pull is essentially a “horizontal” movement, with the cable set around face-height, which provides a effective upper back and rear shoulder stimulus. Adjusting the pulley’s angle can create changes to muscle recruitment which may be beneficial to people looking to address specific muscle weaknesses.

Low Anchor Face Pull

Setting the pulley anywhere from stomach-level to knee-level will significantly change the pulling angle, which increases the work done by your upper traps, external rotators, and middle deltoid.

Low anchor face pulls are a terrific modification for lifters trying to build a “yoked” look — wide, thick shoulders and muscular traps.

High Anchor Face Pull

Anchoring the cable higher than eye-level increases the work done by your lower traps and can begin to recruit your lats because, and the pulley gets higher, the movement becomes more similar to a type of lat pulldown.

High anchor face pulls are fantastic for lifters and athletes who need to get better at “setting” their shoulders for better upper body stability during movements like the bench press or low bar squat.

Benefits of the Face Pull

While it may not carry the esteem of a deadlift or squat, the face pull has built a steadily growing reputation as a versatile and efficient addition to nearly any lifter’s training plan.

Overall Shoulder Health

When it comes to improving or maintaining overall shoulder health, one general movement pattern often receives a lot of attention — horizontal pulling. This comes from a belief that a rowing motion “reverses” the joint stress from horizontal pushing like the bench press and push-up, and therefore provides structural balance to the body.

However, this overlooks the fact that the main muscles trained by horizontal pushes (the pecs) and horizontal pulls (the lats) both internally rotate the shoulder. Therefore, it is important that to regularly load shoulder external rotation in addition to horizontal pulling.

The face pull fits this requirement perfectly because your arms are externally rotated during the peak contraction of each rep. The movement should be included by anybody who regularly performs significant chest or shoulder pressing exercises in training.

Muscle Size

The face pull puts many muscles through a long time under tension, which is ideal for hypertrophy (muscle growth). (2) The trapezius, rhomboids, and deltoids (shoulders), especially the rear deltoid, are all key movers in the face pull.

These muscles are trained with constant tension from the cable, which helps to stimulate muscle growth. These muscles not only work together to help produce strength and stability, but they contribute to an aesthetic and athletic-looking physique.

Muscles Worked by the Face Pull

Face pulls will load and train your upper back and shoulders, which are comprised of several separate muscle groups sharing similar movements.

Trapezius

The trapezius, running along the majority of your upper and mid-back area, is a key player in shoulder blade movement.

All “divisions” of the traps (upper, middle, and lower) are worked by the face pull, but emphasis can be shifted by changing the height of the pulley — a higher angle recruits more lower traps and a lower angle recruits the upper traps more strongly.

Shoulders

Your shoulders are comprised of three separate muscle heads — the front, rear, and middle. These are often trained with overhead presses or different raises or flyes, but the face pull particularly recruits the middle and rear heads of the delts. These sections of the muscle are responsible for manipulating your upper arm during the pulling portion of the face pull.

Rhomboids and Rotator Cuff

The rhomboid major, rhomboid minor, and posterior muscles of the rotator cuff (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and teres minor) work together to keep the shoulder joint in a stable and powerful position. They are significantly recruited during the latter portion of the face pull, and your hands approach eye level.

Strengthening these muscles can be very useful to balance high amounts of pressing volume. They also contribute to maintaining the coveted and elusive “good posture” with your shoulders back and your chest up.

How to Program the Face Pull

Face pulls are best programmed like other relatively light, “pump”-type exercises (think lateral raises or dumbbell flyes), as opposed to big barbell exercises which are often more conducive to very heavy lifting (like deadlifts or barbell rows).

Light to Moderate Weight, Moderate to High Repetition

To keep the work focused on the target muscles without assistance from addition body parts, use a weight that allows at least 10-12 reps. when you start going heavier, other muscles begin contributing to move the weight and it can be tempting to use body English to start the movement.

Perform two to three sets of 10-15 reps at least once per week, ideally after a workout that included heavy pressing, to achieve a restorative-type effect from the face pulls. These also work fantastically as part of a low-intensity “extra workout” on a day off, or paired with your warm-up sets prior heavy pressing to ensure your shoulders and upper back are primed for optimal training.

Face Pull Variations

Whether you’re not able to stand while performing the face pull or if you don’t have access to a full cable stack, you can still benefit from similar movements. Try these alternatives.

Chest-Supported Face Pull

This variation is ideal for lifters who have trouble stabilizing themselves against the weight when standing. It’s also useful for lifters with pre-existing lower back problems who may want added support.

Because your upper body is braced against the pad, it also reduces your ability to “unintentionally” swing your body to initiate the lift, making it a much more strict movement.

Dumbbell Face Pull

This dumbbell-only option is ideal for lifters in home gyms who may not have access to a cable machine. By setting the angle and pulling appropriately, you can mimic the face pull movements and target the same back and shoulder muscles.

Don’t turn the exercise into a chest-supported dumbbell row. Keep you elbows in line with your shoulders and externally rotate your hands at the top instead of keeping your elbows close to your body. That’s an essential step for targeting the rotator cuff muscles.

FAQs

Build a Better Back and Shoulders

The face pull is the muscle-building, performance boosting staple exercise you didn’t know you needed. Make it a regular player in your weekly training and you should soon notice your upper body feeling stronger, moving more easily, and looking more muscular.

References

1. Afonso, J., Ramirez-Campillo, R., Moscão, J., Rocha, T., Zacca, R., Martins, A., Milheiro, A. A., Ferreira, J., Sarmento, H., & Clemente, F. M. (2021). Strength Training versus Stretching for Improving Range of Motion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 9(4), 427. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9040427
2. Burd, Nicholas & Andrews, Richard & West, Daniel & Little, Jonathan & Cochran, Andrew & Hector, Amy & Cashaback, Joshua & Gibala, Martin & Potvin, James & Baker, Steven & Phillips, Stuart. (2011). Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. The Journal of physiology. 590. 351-62. 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200.

Featured Image: Photo by Jason Aggarwal

The post How to Do the Face Pull for a Stronger Upper Body appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The shoulder is the most mobile joint in the body, so it’s not surprising that it’s one of the most commonly jacked-up joints as well. Nearly everyone I have worked with has messed up their shoulder at one time or another (including me). It’s easy to do once you know how, thankfully, it’s also relatively easy to fix.

To know what exactly we have to do, we have to understand how the shoulder works. The humerus bone (upper arm) is the ball of the ball-and-socket joint, and it sits in the glenoid cavity of the scapula, which, you’ve guessed, is the socket—a shallow socket at that.

Happy Shoulders

So this is a happy shoulder joint below.

• If your shoulder is truly happy, it should be sitting in the middle of the socket with all the tendons and muscles acting on it equally to keep it balanced, strong, and mobile.
• If you do too much of specific movements, it can cause an imbalance and pull the shoulder too far out of its happy place in the center of the joint.
• If all you do is bench, bench, bench, your shoulder is probably sitting somewhere around here.

Now you might not mind those rounded pulled forward shoulders, but I’ll tell you what you will mind.

The boo-boo you get once you try to do anything at all differently. What I’m trying to say is, if you have muscle weakness or tightness, it will affect how your shoulder operates.

• Tight lats? Crap overhead flexion
• Tight pec? Rounded shoulders
• Tight traps? Headaches

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Do you see where I’m going? What you need to do to fix all of your shoulder problems is to treat your shoulder joint like a joint. That’s it.

That means training it in all directions and ranges of motion under control.

And, I know it’s easy to say, but it doesn’t have to be that difficult to do either.

If I had to pick three things for you to add to your workouts to give you happy, healthy shoulders that can do anything you want them to, it would be these:

1. Shoulder Controlled Articular Rotations, (CARS)

No, not Brum, Brum cars. CARS is a fancy name but simple to do and a basic concept. It means just moving your shoulder through its full range of motion with control and intention.

Try this one below, and it should highlight any range restrictions you might have. This is the shoulder CAR from the Mobility Reset Program.

2. Cuban Rotations

These are just great. Cuban rotations strengthen all four rotator cuffs, and rotator cuffs are one of the main culprits in a shoulder injury. There isn’t enough time for all the good things I have to say about this exercise.

3. Work Your Extension

Most folks have terrible shoulder extension. Shoulder extension is a seriously undertrained range that your shoulder should have.

This quick video will show you how to build strength in that long-forgotten range.

Look, everyone wants to do the fun stuff. I get it. But you need to pay attention to the pitfalls of ignoring how your body is supposed to move because it will bite you in the ass, and you won’t be doing any fun stuff when you’re injured.

Keep an eye on your body because spending a bit of time keeping everything ticking over nicely will end up with you having more time doing what you love.

If you’re interested in moving pain-free, check out my Reset Series. It’s an easy to follow, and especially right now, at-home course to help you move better and pain-free.

The post Better Shoulder Health With 3 Mobility Routines for Impingement Problems appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

But, not if these movements are causing you grief.

You can’t go wrong with the back squat, deadlift, and bench press—the classic big three powerlifting movements. Train them regularly and you will gain strength, especially if you’re new to training.

But, not if these movements are causing you grief.

Whether due to lingering chronic injuries or a lack of flexibility, I often see people continuing to squat, deadlift, or bench press even when they’re in pain, or aren’t able to lift with safe mechanics, because they don’t realize there are other options.

If this is you, consider laying off whatever movement is causing you issues and consider other ways to work the same muscles, and even build considerable strength, without straining your body as much as the big three sometimes can.

Alternatives to the Bench Press: 1. Dumbbell Floor Press

I often have clients with chronic shoulder problems who complain that bench pressing aggravates their shoulder pain. Then they switch to the floor press—which reduces the range of motion and protects their shoulders while still allowing them to build some serious strength and muscular endurance—and suddenly they are pain-free.

Alternatives to the Bench Press: 2. Barbell Floor Press

If you’re adamant that you still want to use the barbell, try the barbell floor press instead of using DBs. Again, the reduced range of motion and more stable position at the bottom of the movement sometimes makes all the difference for those who struggle during a traditional bench press.

Alternatives to the Deadlift: 1. Elevated Deadlift

If your problem during a traditional deadlift with a barbell is that your hamstrings are so tight you can’t maintain a neutral spine at the bottom of the lift, lifting your barbell three to five inches off the ground is often all you need to be able to deadlift with better form while getting the benefit of the movement.

Alternatives to the Deadlift: 2. Back Leg Elevated Single-Leg DB RDLs

Single leg RDLs are great for building posterior chain strength, especially single leg strength, and for and ironing out muscle imbalances—but sometimes poor balance then becomes your limitation.

Elevating your back leg on a box solves the balance limitation and also allows you to load up a little bit heavier than you would with a single leg RDL. Focus on a perfect hinge and a neutral spine as you’re doing these.

Alternatives to the Back Squat: 1. Goblet Squat to Box

Similar to a front squat (but doesn’t require the flexibility to get into a perfect rack position), the goblet squat allows you to keep a more upright position than the back squat. This makes it a perfect alternative for those who experience back pain during a back squat.

I especially like goblet squats to a box because it ensures a consistent depth and requires you to stand up without using momentum from the stretch reflex you get at the bottom of a traditional squat. This makes box squats a lot harder to lift heavy and safer for those whose joints lack stability.

The goblet squat to a box is also very useful for beginners, as it helps engrain perfect squat mechanics a little easier than the back squat.

Alternatives to the Back Squat: 2. Weighted Step-Ups

For those lacking hip or ankle mobility to squat to depth, but still want to build strength in their lower bodies, weighted step-ups are an effective way to build quad, hamstring, and glute strength safely without requiring a ton of flexibility.

There are tons of variations of the weighted step-up: farmer carry step-ups, front rack step-ups, barbell back rack step-ups, etc. Play around with what feels the most comfortable to you.

The take home message: Be safe. Don’t risk injuring yourself even more just because you want to lift like a powerlifter. Select movements that are wise for your body.

The post Alternatives to the Big 3 Lifts appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Does it feel like one person is breaking your wrists, while another is aggressively pinching your shoulders when you’re in the front rack? Does your back suddenly tighten up? You are not alone.

Does being in the front rack position cause you to make an ugly pain face?

Does it feel like one person is breaking your wrists, while another is aggressively pinching your shoulders when you’re in the front rack? Does your back suddenly tighten up? You are not alone.

While there’s always the option to simply avoid the front rack position with a barbell (dumbbells can easily be substituted for pretty much any barbell movement) but you’re determined to keep on with those front squats, cleans, thrusters, and front rack lunges, you can help yourself out a lot by adding a few things to your warm-up.

Not only will taking the time to warm-up your front rack help open you up and mitigate the discomfort you feel, it will also go a long way in getting you into a better position during the movements themselves, which might even help you lift a few more pounds.

Below are five warm-up drills to help open your front rack position.

Fix Your Front Rack Drill #1: Prone Bench Stretch

On your knees facing the ground, place your elbows on a bench. Straighten out your arms with your palms to the sky. Then, keeping a neutral spine, push your face through your arms and toward the ground. From there, bend your elbows until your fingers touch your shoulders and then straighten your arms back out again, all the while keeping a neutral spine.

Spend one to two minutes on this stretch in your warm-up.

Fix Your Front Rack Drill #2: Wrist Extension Stretch

There are various ways to stretch your wrists, but a simple one is to kneel down and put your palms flat on the ground in front of you with your fingers facing your body and the outside of your wrists facing forward. Then, oscillate back and forth, stretching your wrists a little further each time.

Spend one minute on this stretch in warm-up.

Fix Your Front Rack Drill #3: Barbell Wrist Extension Stretch

Place the barbell on your back, and then drive one elbow at a time as high as you can. As you’re doing this, make sure you keep your ribcage down (avoid spinal extension) and your butt cheeks squeezed as hard as you can while focusing on tilting your pelvis up.

You’ll feel a deeper stretch if you keep the barbell in the palm of your hands, as opposed to rolling it into your fingertips like you do during a front squat.

Do 2 sets of 10 reps on each arm in your warm-up.

Fix Your Front Rack Drill #4: Lat Stretch

Though you might think it’s your wrists that are the problem, sometimes your lats are also playing a role in limiting your front rack position.

To stretch your lats, drop into a lunge next to a post and reach across your body with your outside arm and grab the post above your head. Place the other hand on the post just below. Then lean off the post and into your lat until you feel a deep, but not painful, stretch.

Spend one minute per lat in your warm-up.

Fix Your Front Rack Drill #5: Scapula Push-Ups

Scapular control is needed to develop a more stable rack position, and scapula push-ups are a good starting place for developing this control.

Assume the top of a push-up position and simply squeeze your shoulder blades together and then pull them apart, trying to get as much range of motion in your scapula as you can. If it’s too challenging on your toes, then drop to your knees instead.

Add 2 sets of 10 to your warm-up.

Put These Drills to Practice

Adding all of the above to your warm-up before a training session only adds 6 to 8 minutes to your day, and might just make all the difference in eliminating physical discomfort and improving your performance. Take the time.

The post Improve Your Front Rack Position appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The shoulder is one of the most frequently injured joints among gym rats. The shoulder is one of the most complex joints in the human body. Due to its extremely wide range of mobility, it can often be placed in compromised positions which increase risk of injury. A large number of muscles attach to the joint and the space inside the joint is also somewhat limited.

Modern living tends to place the shoulders in a poor position for excessive periods of time (e.g., driving, on smartphones or laptops, etc.). This poor positioning closes the space in the joint capsule and can contribute to shoulder pain.

On top of this, we use our shoulders almost non-stop. Is it any wonder they often get hurt, with all these factors involved with the addition of the beating we give them in and out of the gym?

Looking purely at training, the shoulders are involved in practically every upper body exercise. If you perform the Olympic lifts then they get a huge training stimulus from that, too.

Even back squats require decent shoulder mobility. Add in all the loading and unloading of weight plates with our regular day to day tasks and it is easy to see why so many people end up with cranky shoulders.

The Debilitating Nature of Shoulder Pain

If you have ever suffered from shoulder pain you know how debilitating it can be. All of a sudden, the vast majority of the exercises in your training regime are off limits.

This is hugely frustrating. Believe me, I know. Over the years I have encountered shoulder issues a couple of times. Whenever these issues raise their ugly head it is pretty simple for me to trace back to why it happened.

When I look back over my training I usually get this “duh” moment where the blindingly obvious suddenly becomes apparent—hindsight is always 20:20 I guess.

After making the same mistake more than once I have also fixed it several times. The solution isn’t very complicated or time-consuming. It revolves around some small programming tweaks, fixing a couple of weak links, and improving mobility. Now that might initially sound like a lot, but it really isn’t. A few simple drills will get you back to 100% asap.

Bulletproof Your Shoulders

A commonly asked question is, “what causes shoulder pain?” The rotator cuff is the default answer of most physical therapists that I have come across. Now, I am not saying this is wrong, but I don’t believe it is quite this simple. There are multiple factors at play and you should address all of them in order to bulletproof your shoulders.

The first is the ratio of pressing to pulling exercises people do. Almost all guys favor the mirror muscles. Incline, flat, decline bench presses, overhead presses, and all sorts of flye variations are all staples in their programs.

What about the back? Add in some pull-ups and rows. The back is a far larger, and more complex muscle than the chest so treat it as such and bias your overall volume in favor of the back.

Put it this way, it is perfectly fine to say, “I’m training back today,” but you wouldn’t ever say I’m training “front.” The muscles of the back make up roughly the same area as the chest, anterior delts, and core, so train them as such. Doing this will go a long way to improve the health of your shoulders.

Next up is the ratio of vertical to horizontal pulling. Ask any self-respecting gym junkie what the best back exercise is and they’ll probably tell you it is pull-ups. These are great, no doubt about it. The problem is they primarily train the lats. The lats are internal rotators of the shoulder.

Slaving away on the pull-up bar can actually exacerbate the shoulder injuries so many of us suffer from. I suggest that for every set of vertical pulling you do, you do two sets of horizontal rowing. Combined with the above tip of focusing on more overall back work this will build a really solid platform for you to stay injury-free.

You must improve thoracic mobility. As I mentioned earlier, our modern lives tend to put our shoulders in a crappy position. The whole of the upper back gets hunched forward and our heads end up way out in front of us.

This is not good. It ends up with us being flexed over in the thoracic region of our spine. We slowly lose our ability to extend through this region. This has consequences for shoulder mechanics and places you at a greater risk of injury.

To fix the lack of thoracic mobility I suggest you use the foam roller. Place it on the ground, and lie down across it with your upper back the point of contact. Place your hands behind your head as if you were sunbathing and chill out for a bit. Let gravity do its thing and gently pull your elbows down.

This will give pec minor a nice stretch. Tight pecs are another contributor to poor posture so this kills two birds with one stone. After five slow, deep breaths, move a half inch or so down so the roller is fractionally lower down your spine and repeat the five deep breaths. Do this every day.

The Role of the Traps

Scapular (shoulder blade) stability, or lack thereof, is one of the key contributors to shoulder dysfunction in my opinion. The muscles responsible for this are often weak. No surprise really because little thought is given to them in most programs.

One of the key muscles involved in this are the traps. Not the upper traps which, when well-developed, make your head disappear into your neck, but the mid, and particularly lower traps.

There should be a balance of strength between the upper, middle and lower traps. This is rarely the case. For most muscle chasing folk, the upper traps get plenty of love. The mid and lower traps not so much. I’m sure you have seen the bros shrugging huge weights to target the upper traps. When have you ever seen someone specifically target the mid and lower traps?

Probably never. Am I right?

It’s true that the middle traps tend to get worked quite hard during back exercises like rows and pulls. The lower traps, however, get no love and if they do get any attention. As a result, the average gym goer has pathetically weak lower traps.

The lower traps function to retract and depress the scapulae (think shoulders in back pockets). As I previously mentioned, modern living (and stupid training programs) promote poor thoracic mobility and overactive upper traps. This tends to result in long weak lower traps.

Well, here’s the thing, weak lower traps lead to unstable scapulae. Given they are crucial to scapular stability this presents a problem. When loads get heavy they aren’t able to fulfill this function and your risk of getting into awkward positions.

While this might not lead to an acute injury it very often adds up over time to cause a nagging pain that soon escalates to a full-blown injury.

By now you should have got the point. Lower traps are important to shoulder health. Most of us have weak lower traps. The fix is simple, strengthen your lower traps. This might be where you get stuck. Do you have a repertoire of lower trap exercises in your toolbox?

Don’t worry most people don’t. I have got you covered with a few simple exercises for you to put into practice. First up, is my favorite activation drill. This is a combo of three exercises done back to back which will fire up your lower traps and give you a warm, fuzzy, glow of a burn in them.

This helps create a mind/muscle connection with the area and sets you up to develop strength in them going forward. I suggest you do this drill before every upper body session.

The shoulder saver combo:

• Prone lower trap lifts
• Prone scapular retraction in external rotation
• Prone external rotation plus press

Do 5 reps of each exercise with a 5-second iso-hold at the top of each.

The next exercise is done a little heavier and challenges the traps in their scapular retraction function. Given we want to be able to hold this position for the duration of pressing sets it is important to develop some muscular endurance with these.

In my experience, if you try and do really high reps with this it tends to get sloppy and the movements are a bit jerky. To remedy this, I have found that performing slow, controlled reps with a 5-count peak contraction work well. Do a few sets of 8 reps every upper body session and you will thank me for it.

An unrelated element of shoulder health is the imbalance we create between the front, side, and back of the shoulder. Most people get tons of anterior (front) delt training with all their pressing work. The rear delts don’t get quite as much stimulus in general, but they are trained with row variations.

Finally, the lateral delts get very little training from compound movements. The upright row is the best at targeting them, however, those with cranky shoulders will likely find upright rows cause more harm than good. Balancing out the strength of the lateral delt then comes down to isolation exercise such as lateral raises.

This exercise has several limitations. When done with dumbbells there is almost no tension on the muscle at the bottom. Then, as you perform the lift, the lever arm gets longer and longer until you reach the top of the movement. At this point the exercise it mechanically hardest.

Yet the muscle is in a fully shortened position. This is the weakest part of your range. So, the strength curve and exercise resistance profile are opposed. This is not optimal.

There is another problem with the dumbbell lateral raise and that is how most people do them. Most lifters go way too heavy, use crappy form, and just end up shrugging the weight up. So, all they do is train their upper traps even more and leave the lateral delts relatively untouched.

To balance up the strength ratio of the shoulder muscles you need an exercise you can keep the traps out of, provide stability to the scapulae, and challenge the muscle across its full contractile range to be maximally efficient and effective. To achieve this, I give you the lying, cable cuff lateral raise.

Because of the set-up on the bench, you can keep the traps out of the movement, you have a really solid base to lift from, the shoulder blades are given artificial stability from the bench, and the cables allow there to be constant tension on the lateral delts. Win, win, win, win!

Finally, improving external rotation strength will likely be beneficial to shoulder health.

You don’t have to go crazy with intensity or volume on these. Two sets of 8-10 reps done in a slow controlled fashion will do the job. Don’t push these too failure. Leave a couple of reps in the tank and just focus on quality of movement and getting a gentle “burn” type sensation in the muscles.

Remember to Care for Your Shoulders

A few of my best tips to fix shoulder pain and correct movement patterns:

• Create a favorable ratio of pulling to pushing
• Bias the use of horizontal over vertical pulling
• Improve thoracic mobility
• Strengthen the mid and lower traps
• Train the mid and lower traps for strength endurance using isometric holds
• Strengthen the lateral delts in an intelligent fashion
• Increase external rotation strength

You might also like:

• 5 Simple Solutions To Shoulder Pain
• 10 Methods To Prevent And Treat Shoulder Injuries
• How To Self-Diagnose Your Shoulder Pain

Hey, I hope you are enjoying this article and find value in utilizing these concepts to build lean muscle. Writing about this stuff is a hobby for me. What I do all day, every day is coaching people. Both in-person and online. Evaluating, researching, and refining my craft to provide more value to my clients. If you’d like to work with me then, please get in touch here to find out about my coaching services.

The post Solving Shoulder Injuries for Gym Bros appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Where is the breakdown? What are we getting wrong? And why the hell haven’t I written about it, so I can send the next person who asks an article, rather than a long-ass Facebook message or email?

When it comes to diagnosing the cause of pain in a sophisticated joint like the shoulder, it’s complicated. If you have painful shoulders, it’s worth going to see a professional. But what I’ll bring you today are some out-of-the-box strategies that I’ve used to get myself and others out of chronic shoulder pain.

Just Stop It

It all starts with removing the negatives. As I mentioned in my knee pain article, people often just need to stop doing what is hurting them. When your health professional says to rest, do it. But there may be more to consider than just what you do in the gym. Renowned physical therapist Dr. Shirley Sahrmann tells us:

“The real reason behind a painful pattern is daily, everyday activities. It’s actually not the way you stretch before a workout. It’s not the way you let your elbows flare in the bench press or how you do your crunches. None of those things are good choices, but they may not be as harmful as simpler, non-training tasks.”

Many people think only about adding things to their programming to fix shoulder pain, or to avoid it. I am a big fan of corrective shoulder programs, but truth be told, a lot of them aren’t working for people. We need an approach that helps us stop doing the things that are creating pain in the first place, rather than a whole heap of stuff to prehab, rehab, or treat it after it already happened. No amount of rehab or prehab can possibly undo the damage you are doing to your body daily if you are not mindful and willing to stop doing the things that hurt it.

Postural Strain and Movement Quality

Scientists and practitioners love to argue about whether there is such a thing as poor posture, or one correct posture. It’s true that there is limited evidence to suggest that shoulder injuries are caused by poor posture, mainly because there are way too many variables to consider in studies. But I strongly believe that many people are doing considerable damage to their bodies every day just by how they sit, stand, sleep, and do daily activities.

Regardless of whether you define it as postural strain (a term I prefer over “poor posture”) or not, there are millions of people in non-industrialized countries who sit and stand for extended periods of time, and do hard manual labor, and have no neck, back, or shoulder pain. It is how they sit, stand, sleep, and work that is the game changer. The way they position their body keeps them out of pain.

Some of the biggest breakthroughs I have seen have happened after I helped people to stand, sit, sleep, and do mundane daily tasks (i.e., move) better. I have alleviated shoulder pain (and back pain) with some clients by having them avoid

• One-sided dominance: driving, using their computer mouse, brushing their teeth, using their phone with the same hand all the time
• Sleeping on their painful side, or sleeping on their stomach with their arm overhead
• Carrying a heavy bag over one shoulder
• Sitting rotated in one direction in an office environment
• Sitting in bed cross-legged, hunched over a computer for hours
• Vacuuming, lifting furniture, and twisting in a flexed position
• Sitting on their wallet in the back pocket

If you are in pain, take a long look at what your day-to-day movement habits are like. This is where the damage is done. Esther Gokhale’s book “8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back” is a great reference for position and posture.

Your Program or Technique Need Work

Check your exercise selection, order, load, volume, and technique. My article Advanced Programming Principles For Shoulder And Knee Health covered this very thing for balancing the scapula and improving shoulder health, and the quads and hamstrings for knee health.

If you have shoulder problems and train regularly, I can say with little hesitation that there is probably something amiss in your programming that is putting your shoulder into pain. For instance, if you spend a lot of time in flexion and do a lot of overhead work and pressing in general, this is a recipe for disaster. Check your technique and specifically look at the position of your setup for your exercises. Eliminate those exercises that take you into pain or are painful after training.

Mix It Up

If you cannot stop doing what is causing you pain, for example if it’s your work, your only other option is to try and vary what you are doing. Move from a seated to a standing workstation from time to time. Try some walking meetings.

If you have to hold pads as a trainer and that is hurting you, try some foam sticks instead. If BJJ is hurting your shoulder, try to avoid always being hunched up in your guard on one shoulder defending a guard pass, and instead try working your takedowns, your top-position game, and your guard-passing game. If you train as an orthodox fighter, train as a southpaw for a while. Try some cross training. Try a different sport or hobby.

Most joint problems are from overuse, repetitive movements and patterns, and over-specialization. Most people need to move more, but moving differently, with more variety can be a real key to improving your pain. Once you have removed the negatives,” it’s time to look at adding something new or changing some things up.

Get In Line

What comes first in corrective exercise: mobility, stability, or strength? Trick question! The answer is alignment. We often damage our joints from the way they are loaded or stressed, and alignment can be a big player in how these stresses are distributed through the joint.

Neck problems can be shoulder pain in disguise. The thoracic area or rib cage being twisted or out of whack can play havoc for the shoulders. Even the pelvis plays a role. It is all connected. Some people abhor the idea of manipulations or adjustments, but sometimes they are necessary. You can torque, pull, and stretch on a particular area, but if the joint needs to be manipulated and put back into place, you might not be able to get it done on your own.

Should You Even Be Doing That?

Movement screens and baselines can be amazing tools for judging whether any movement, stretch, or exercise is good for you. Otherwise, how do you know something is actually good for you?

Lots of people tell me that yoga, or Pilates, or their shoulder rehab program is working for them, without being able to explain why, or even show me what’s improved. When pressed, they’ll regurgitate the dogma that they’ve read or been told. Then the very same individuals will complain in the next breath about how much pain they are in, or that their symptoms are worsening.

If what you are doing shuts down your body for days, it’s hard to argue that it’s working. Think objectively about whether what you are doing is working for you, or whether you just think that it is.

Use a baseline test, like a shoulder s-pattern, arm raise against the wall, active straight leg raise, toe touch, neck turn, etc. Try any corrective exercise, and then retest against your movement baseline. Simply put, if your body likes it, your ROM or symmetry will be the same or preferably better. If it doesn’t, then it will be worse. This is a highly beneficial strategy, but one I seldom see used or taught.

With a little bit of body awareness, you can determine whether things are good for you. You can both see and feel whether your movement is better as a result of what you are doing.

Not Everything Works for Everybody

If I had a dollar for everyone I know who has gone to a physio for a shoulder problem, with their only take-home being to rest and do some resistance band external rotations, I’d probably be a millionaire. This one-size-fits-all approach hasn’t worked for most people I know, and it doesn’t address the underlying cause of why the rotator cuff isn’t doing its job (hint: it’s not the rotator cuff).

I’ve seen online fitness “experts” push the band pull-apart as the be-all and end-all for shoulders, and movement culturists such as Ido Portal pushing passive hanging as the cure for shoulder problems. But I have found that my own shoulders, as well as those of some of my clients and peers, are actually worse after passive hanging.

The point is that not all things are for all people, so be careful of cookie-cutter programs or cure-alls for shoulders. They don’t always work. Check it with a movement baseline as described above, and pay attention to how your shoulders feel the next day or two to find if it’s the right thing for you.

Get After It

Often, people will say “I did something to my shoulder in the gym today.” Here is the truth: It’s unlikely you hurt your shoulder that day. That session was just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Tissue damage and dysfunction take time. You’ve been hurting your shoulder for some time, with your posture, your movement habits and your training.

And it will take time to change all that. You need to be aggressive (within limits) to change how your body works. When I ask people how their rehabilitation is going, I often get a negative answer. They’ll admit that they aren’t doing the exercises at all, or not enough to affect a positive outcome. People can complain about their physiotherapy not working, but in my experience, it is often nothing to do with the physiotherapist, but with patient adherence to the program.

The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) uses the following flow: 

Applying that framework to shoulder care might look something like this:

1. Diaphragmatic breathing progressions from prone or supine to various positions
2. Soft tissue work: Foam rolling of t-spine, rhomboids, lats, and some gentle extension over roller. Massage ball of pec minor, 1st rib, erector spinae
3. Mobility and flexibility: Cat/cow, wall dog, chest to floor stretches, rib pulls, Bretzel variations, thoracic windmill, FMS t-drill, lateral flexion and side bending, side-to-side lat stretch from child pose, side reaching from various positions, pec and lat stretching, posterior capsule stretches, seated and standing shoulder extension stretches
4. Motor control: Wall slides, reach, roll and lifts, kettlebell arm bar, T’s, Y’s and W’s, band pull-aparts, 3-way band pull aparts, side lying dumbbell external rotations, standing band external rotations, dumbbell t-raise
5. Strength: Deadlift variations (yes, they connect the shoulder to the torso), rowing variations, reverse flys, loaded carries, crawling, and creeping

The missing ingredients in a lot of shoulder programs are motor control (i.e., stability) and strength work. Motor control cements and integrates gains in mobility into movement patterns, and strength locks them in. The order in which things are done matters, and so does doing all the steps of the protocol outlined in the FMS.

Get It in Your Warm Up and Cool Down

Resetting the body before or after a workout will help reverse the damage done from the work day or training itself, and is a great way to prevent issues before they come up. Try doing the opposite of what you did in your workout or at work. If you did a big overhead press session, try some hangs or loaded carries to decompress the spine or the shoulders by putting them into traction. Just finished a BJJ session, spent on your back defending the guard pass in flexion on one side? Then try some gentle extension and lateral flexion to open up that side. Just finished a super-heavy, high-threshold deadlift or back squat session? Try 7-10 minutes of shaking, vibration, and oscillation of the body to change the tonus, relax the nervous system, and loosen up.

If you suffer from shoulder pain, try these protocols. They can change your life and help solve your pain for good. If you follow this and get an outcome, please drop me a line and let me know how you got on. Remember, pain and injuries don’t have to be a curse, they are just feedback, and an opportunity to learn. If you are training hard at anything, injuries are almost guaranteed to happen. But if you are smart, you can limit your time away from the thing you love.

The post Holistic Strategies to End Shoulder Pain appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The shoulder joint is complicated. It consists of connections between the upper arm bone (humerus), the shoulder blade (scapula), and the collarbone (clavicle). The arm is allowed to go overhead because of an interplay between these bones, as well as the act of the scapula moving over the ribs and the clavicle moving at the breast bone (sternum).

Because of its complexity, it shouldn’t be terribly surprising people struggle with this area. Add into the equation the fact that the joint is quite shallow, which results in a sense of instability, and you’ve got a joint that’s seriously misunderstood.¹

A survey of 29,026 people in Norway found 15.4% of men and 24.9% of women experienced shoulder pain on a weekly basis.² Pain is a nuisance and limits your everyday activity. For those of us that are active, shoulder pain can decrease our quality of life in a debilitating way.

Let’s assume that if you have pain or discomfort, you have been checked out by a medical professional and told there is nothing physically wrong with your shoulder. We’ll look at both the inability to take the arm overhead because of stiffness or discomfort, and the inability to take the arm overhead because it feels unstable. But first, let’s talk about how the motion of taking the arm up happens.

How Do the Arms Go Up?

For the purposes of this post, let’s assume the arm starts at the scapula. When we take the arm overhead, the scapula externally rotates, posteriorly tilts, and upwardly rotates, while the clavicle elevates and retracts.³ In plain English, when you take your arm overhead, the shoulder blade rotates out and up while the collarbone lifts up and back. It’s like there is a loop from the collarbone all the way around to the shoulder blade. What happens at one changes the position of the other, and both allow the necessary space to be created for the arms to move upwards.

One common issue I see with overhead movement is the inability to differentiate the shoulder from the ribs. Instead of letting the arms go overhead by letting the scapulae move, often people will lift the front of their ribs. If the ribs are held down, the arms (usually) don’t go as far, indicating a mobility, strength, or motor control issue.

Think about all of the times you have been told to keep your shoulders “down and back.” For the shoulder to function optimally, it’s important to be able to do the opposite of down and back. The shoulder blade is not a fixed object; it allows the arm to move freely.

Learn to Feel Your Shoulders

The tricky part about this is you can’t see your shoulder blade, which can make feeling how the shoulder blade moves an obscure concept. Fortunately, there are ways to improve overall awareness of the back of your body. When I teach, I follow a basic model: bring awareness to what a specific area feels like, teach the area how to move and how to be still, and then strengthen and mobilize. You can’t change what you can’t feel, and the shoulder area is no exception.

An easy way to begin feeling how the scapula works with the arm is to lie on your back and move the shoulder up, down, towards the ceiling, and towards the floor. You should begin to feel the shoulder blade moving against the floor. You can also take the arm up towards the ceiling. Keeping the arm straight, exhale and reach the hand towards the ceiling. You should feel your shoulder blade move away from the center of the back. Still keeping the arm straight, lower the shoulder back to the floor. Perform 6-8 reps per side.

Once you have mastered what it feels like on your back, flip over into a hands and knees position. Exhale, let your shoulder blades move away from each other. Inhale, let them come towards each other. Not sure whether you are moving your shoulder blades? Try this: exhale, let your back round into a cat position. Your shoulder blades will naturally move away from each other. Inhale, let your back arch. Your shoulder blades will come towards each other. Once you have done a few by rounding and arching your back, see if you can keep your back still and move just from your shoulder blades.

Breath Control and Shoulder Movement

Breathing and shoulder mobility go hand in hand. The muscles that help you breathe when you are stressed out can technically be any of the muscles that attach to the ribcage.⁴ Coincidentally, a lot of the muscles that attach to the rib cage connect either to the head or arm. If you consistently breathe like you are preparing for the zombie apocalypse, chances are high you won’t have a lot of freedom to move at the shoulder. 

There are a number of specific breathing drills that can calm the nervous system down and alter breathing habits. One of the easiest ways to influence breathing is by inhaling through the nose for a count of four, and exhaling out the mouth for a count of eight. You can do this sitting, standing, or lying down. As you exhale, observe how your ribs soften down and in. When you inhale, instead of letting the ribs flare up, let your air move forward, back, and to the sides. Take 4-6 breaths before you begin your workout. This creates awareness of rib position and makes it easier, when you take your arms overhead, to make sure you don’t lift at the ribs, isolating the arms instead.

Motor Control in the Shoulder

Once you have a good idea what the shoulder blades feel like, it’s time to work on taking the arm overhead. But first, let’s take a moment to understand what it feels like to have a sense of co-contraction in the shoulder.

There are four little muscles that stabilize the shoulder in the socket. These are considered the rotator cuff muscles. There are also several muscles that control movement of the arm in different directions. The ability to feel an even distribution of load across the shoulder involves a sense of co-contraction in the stabilizing muscles, as well as balance across the front and back of the neckline. It’s as though the collarbone and the top of the shoulder blades reach out evenly, until eventually they join at the top of the shoulder. The video below offers a brief explanation of how to feel this co-contraction.

The concept of co-contraction will usually aid in a sense of stability throughout the shoulder joint. One way to practice moving the arms overhead while keeping this sensation is to draw on what you learned from the exercise above. Remember what it felt like to gently pull the dowel apart? Come onto your hands and knees. Do the same action of pulling the dowel apart with your hands, except now you’ll push as if you are trying to spread the mat apart. Keep this action as you rock your hips back and bring your hips back to center.

Another option is to set up on hands and knees and imagine there is a line running from the inside of your armpit down to your thumb and from the center of the shoulder down to the pinkie. See if you can organize yourself so those two lines are the same length and you are creating as much length as possible between the wrist and the shoulder. Once you have that, see if you can do the same action of moving your hips back towards your heels as you exhale; as you inhale, return to center.

Which of these cues works best will depend on your habits. If you have a difficult time fully straightening the arm, you might respond really well to the idea of your inner arm and outer arm becoming the same length. If you have elbows that hyperextend, you might do a little better imagining you are pulling the mat apart. However, these rules aren’t set in stone. Play with them and see what works best for you.

These cues work because they are using the arms and the muscles surrounding the shoulder girdle in a more focused way. Once you build the strength to hold these positions, typically, relying on the muscles in this way will be a little more efficient.

Your Ribs Are Not Shoulders

If you set up on hands and knees with your ribs moving towards the floor, all of the shoulder work described above will feel more difficult. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it isn’t efficient. If you can get the lower ribs to run parallel to the floor in quadruped, it will make it easier to isolate the movement of the arms going overhead when standing or in handstand. An easy way to get your ribs parallel to the floor is to exhale and feel how the ribs move toward the back. Now inhale, but don’t let the ribs move towards the floor. You will probably feel your abs, making this one of those positions that can accomplish multiple things at once.

You can also work on reaching the arm overhead from a forearm and knees position. Keep the sense of the hands lightly pulling away from each other and maintain a connection between the ribs and the pelvis. This keeps things out of the neck and allows the scapulae to upwardly rotate. Exhale as you reach the arm, inhale as you return it to center.

What Goes Up…

When you think about moving a body part, you probably focus on how to get the body part from point A to point B. For instance, when you think about taking the arm overhead, the image that comes to mind is probably what needs to happen to take the arm up. But what about taking the arm down?

Whenever you work on controlling a limb’s movement against gravity, you are working on strengthening the muscles eccentrically. When the arm is overhead, you have two options: let momentum pull it down, or slowly lower it down. Slowly lowering it down requires more overall tension in the muscle fibers than lifting it up does.⁵ Research suggests the higher load placed on tendons during eccentric training leads to stronger tendons. The end result to this type of training is feeling more stable and stronger in end-range positions, like when your arms are fully extended overhead.

There are a number of ways to add eccentric exercises into your routine. The exercise above on the forearms is both a motor control exercise and an eccentric exercise. Go slowly, and think about resisting the floor as you return the arm to a starting position.

The Simple Hang

Once you understand the mechanics that allow the arms to go overhead in a hands-and-knees or elbows-and-knees position, it’s time to see if it feels any better to go overhead holding onto a bar. It could be argued hanging is a fundamental position, one our shoulder girdles are designed to do.⁶ However, it requires a large degree of mobility, strength, and motor control. If you don’t trust your ability to place all of your weight on your arms, begin by hanging on a bar where you can leave your feet on the ground, bending the knees to allow more weight to move into your arms as you gain strength and mobility.

When you come into the hanging position, allow yourself to hang freely, with your arms near your ears. Make sure your ribs aren’t moving forward towards the wall in front of you. Once you have this position, you can practice pull-up prep by keeping your arms straight and pulling the bar down towards you. Your shoulders will move away from your ears and your scapulae will move down your back. Go back and forth between these two positions, letting your exhale move the shoulders down and the inhale move the shoulders up.

There is power in feeling your arms can go overhead safely, without a feeling of instability or stiffness. If you work on the fundamentals of the movement, breaking it down and understanding where the motion comes from, you will experience a greater sense of freedom and strength while hanging or with weight overhead. Whenever you struggle with a specific action, ask yourself, “can I do this in a different way that doesn’t hurt?” If the answer is yes, practice that for a little while. Once you’ve built confidence and strength, try it a different way. We are extremely adaptable organisms if we are given the opportunity to respond to progressive, specific challenges in a systematic manner.

The post Get Your Shoulders Under Control appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

A waiter’s walk is performed by simply holding a weight overhead and walking. I recommend using a kettlebell, or two. A barbell with a snatch grip or jerk grip works great, too. Each variation offers different benefits. With one kettlebell, the obliques and spinal erectors get extra work stabilizing the body. The double kettlebell or barbell variations train the ability to lock out under load and require great mobility.

It is important to take care of the wrist in this movement. Take a look at the wrists in the picture below. If you push heavy weights overhead, your wrist should be as straight as possible. Allowing it to bend back can lead to wrist injuries. I see many people with wrist issues as they begin CrossFit. My best guess for why this happens is that they allow the wrist to bend back in catching the jerk and snatch. Wrist wraps are not the solution. Building a powerful connection between your hands and shoulder is.

Left: Proper grip and wrist position for a waiter’s walk; Right: Improper grip – not recommended

It’s great to practice heavy waiter’s walks, but getting the weight overhead can be a limiting factor. Any way you can get the weight overhead will work. For some, a Turkish get up followed by waiter’s walks might be best. Others might have to push press or jerk it into position.

The Benefits of Waiter’s Walks

Dan John has long advocated weighted walks as one of his five fundamental movements. The biggest benefit of waiter’s walks their ability to train the neural pattern needed to catch and hold a heavy load overhead, which is especially helpful for snatches and jerks.

Here are a few other benefits of the waiter’s walk:

• Strengthens the wrist – A straight wrist leads to a powerful grip and begins the connection between the weight and the ground. All parts of this connection need to be tight.
• Locks out the elbow – Beginners often fail Olympic lifts because they have soft elbows when they catch the weight. Try the waiter’s walk with a soft elbow and you will quickly learn why you need to lock out. Again, the lock out builds a solid foundation with the ground.
• Engages the lats and shoulder connection – Waiter’s walks teach you to pack the shoulder into the back. A simple but effective cue is to pull the shoulders back and down.
• Teaches variability under load – Walking strengthens the above connections. As you walk, you move the weight around. Your body corrects this movement and builds neural patterns in the process. This is an invaluable teaching technique and probably one of the reasons Dan John loves loaded carries.

How to Program Waiter’s Walks

The plan put forth by Pavel Tsatsouline and Dan John in Easy Strength makes sense – end each day with a loaded carry. Once or twice a week, the loaded carry can be the waiter’s walk. If you are doing Turkish get ups to get the weights up, you can add in a 25 meter walk between the get up and the get down.

Waiter’s walks force beginners to fix their weak links. If you do not have the thoracic or shoulder mobility, work on it at least once a week with Turkish get ups or waiter’s walks. Practice with one-arm waiter’s walk to start with.

Coaches can give cues, but the waiter’s walk provides direct feedback. As you walk, the weight bounces and moves. Each movement teaches the body how to counteract that force. This develops neural patterns and shoulder strength that are invaluable under load.

More on shoulder health:

• 7 Exercises to Optimize Shoulder Health With Kettlebells
• How to Crawl Your Way Back to Shoulder Health
• Avoid Shoulder Injury by Strengthening the Rotator Cuff
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. John, Dan. Can You Go: Assessments and Program Design for the Active Athlete and Everybody Else. Santa Cruz, California: On Target Publications, 2015.

2. Tsatsouline, Pavel, and Dan John. Easy Strength: How to Get a Lot Stronger Than Your Competition-And Dominate in Your Sport. 1st edition. Dragon Door Publications, 2011.

The post Train Your Body to Love Holding Heavy Weights Overhead appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The big three areas that keep people from progressing in their training are backs, knees, and shoulders. Unfortunately, most people think that they are all distinctly different issues. But when you understand natural movement and what we are really trying to achieve with functional fitness, you see that they can be very much interconnected.

A great example is the innovative work of Thomas Myers. His work is yielding invaluable information about natural movement, and concepts like his “spiral line” are changing how we see training, even with some classic movements. What Mr. Myers shows with the spiral line concept is how interconnected the parts of our bodies are; how our right foot is connected up to our left shoulder through a specific sequence of communication through the body. Without making things complicated, it means that your shoulder, back, or knee problem may be the result, not the cause of the problem.

Understanding such information allows us to target very specific drills to solve a lot of issues at once. A lot of common ailments can be addressed by one of my favorite kettlebell drills, the windmill. The windmill probably isn’t new to you, but I want to change your perception of the potential of this movement.

Windmills Connect the Spiral Line

Before we delve too deep, let’s clarify some misconceptions about the windmill.

1. The benefit doesn’t come from “stretching” the shoulder.
2. The windmill isn’t a yoga triangle.

The windmill is so much more than a mobility drill. Properly performed, it will build functional strength. I’ll admit it, I used to think the windmill was nothing but a manlier way of approaching flexibility training. But the more I learned about the body, the more appreciation I have gained for the windmill.

One of the reasons I think the windmill is such a powerful drill is because it is one of the few that represents the spiral line that Mr. Myers refers to in his book, Anatomy Trains. If we can build a better connection of the foot, lower leg, hip, trunk, and shoulder, we end up alleviating, or at least greatly reducing many of the problems that plague many of us. Building these strong connections is how we resolve dysfunction, which is often the reason we end up with that fitness goal-killer: pain. 

A Hip Hinge for the Frontal Plane

One of the unheralded benefits of the windmill is that it allows us to train the hip hinge pattern in the frontal plane. Our bodies are supposed to move in three dimensions, but most strength programs only focus on one. Expanding our ability to move and be strong in more planes of motion means a greater carryover to life and sport.

Typically, we think of movement training being one thing and strength being another. But the truth is that real functional fitness combines both elements of movement and strength to have a synergistic effect on our bodies. In fact, one study on performance and injury prevention in firefighters showed a greater degree of positive training effects with a movement-based program than a conventional program.¹

Most would think of the low windmill as a beginner exercise. Deeper examination shows a variety of benefits resulting from what amounts to a frontal plane deadlift. Challenging what we can do straight up and down and what we can do at varying angles is very different. As Thomas Myers states:

“The fascial system is better trained by a wide variety of vectors—in angle, temp, and load… Loading the tissue one way all the time means it will be weaker when life—which is rarely repetitive—throws that part of the body a curve ball.”

The windmill is a wonderful representation of those ideas and so much more. I have found the three-level approach in the video below to be an effective way to progress the windmill so that you move, feel, perform, and live better.

Can’t get enough kettlebell training?

Make Turkish Get Ups Your Best Movement

Reference:

1. Frost, David M., Tyson AC Beach, Jack P. Callaghan, and Stuart M. McGill. “Exercise-based performance enhancement and injury prevention for firefighters: Contrasting the fitness-and movement-related adaptations to two training methodologies.” The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 29, no. 9 (2015): 2441-2459.

The post The Shoulder Cure Exercise appeared first on Breaking Muscle.