Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

Most people that workout fall in love with the pushing exercises because they help to build the muscle that we care most about. When you train your chest, triceps, shoulders, or even your abs you are feeding into a front to back imbalance that is not only costing you a chance to have muscle symmetry but to maintain healthy joints and muscles in the process.

In this video, I’m going to show you one thing that you need to do at the end of every workout you do to help counteract the problems caused by your current workout. Most workout programs never come close to programming enough shoulder external rotation or scapular work to offset the high volumes of pushing that come with every program to build bigger muscles and look ripped.

As a physical therapist and strength coach, it’s impossible for me to draw up a workout program that ignores one over the other. That said, I have accepted the fact that most of those that create workout programs are not physical therapists and do not have the experience with programming that is needed to be aware of these postural pitfalls and muscle imbalances that come from putting workouts together the wrong way.

To counteract that, I say there is one thing that you need to start doing right now after every workout that will at least start to get you back on the right track. It is a simple two exercise combination that helps to strengthen the muscles of the upper back, lower traps, rear delts and rotator cuff that will offset the work that you are doing in the rest of your workouts.

Perform a set of face pulls to failure and then immediately go into a set of overhead rope pulls. The goal on the face pull is to not just pull the handles of the rope towards your face but to externally rotate your hands as you do so. Try to pull your hands so that your thumbs are pointing behind you at the end of the rep. You also want to make sure that your elbows are pointing down and not higher than the level of your shoulders in order to keep your joints in a healthy position.

Next you want to perform the overhead trap raise. Here you also want to try and rotate your thumbs out as you raise your arms overhead to clear more room in the shoulder joint and allow you to get maximum elevation over your head. The lower traps are the muscles that fire to keep your shoulder blades in the right position and help strengthen your shoulder girdle and posture.

Do three sets of this superset combination at the end of every single workout you do. I don’t care if you are training chest, legs, push, or even pull. Whatever your split is, you need to start accumulating the volume in this posterior chain if you want to start overcoming the posture, imbalance and tendency to increase the likelihood of shoulder injury.

If you are looking for a complete program that puts the science back in strength and shows you how to get the most out of every workout, head to http://athleanx.com and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. Start training like an athlete and overlook nothing in your workouts.

For more videos on how to fix your posture and how to get rid of rounded shoulders, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24