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

If you get pain with overhead shoulder presses or any exercises where you have to lift your arms up over your head, then this video is for you. I’m going to show you 4 simple steps to fixing the pain you get in your shoulders during lifting once and for all. It doesn’t matter if you feel a pinch, a grinding, or even a cracking when you lift your arms up, this four step approach is going to help you get the job done.

The key to the success of this progression is that it follows a very specific sequence and it addresses the 4 key areas that often contribute most to the problem. These are the rounding of your shoulders and the postural causes of that, the activity or lack of in the rotator cuff muscles, the flexibilty of the lats as well as the mobility of the thoracic spine into extension. All of these must be in place in order to free up the shoudler during overhead movements and help to get rid of the pain that you are feeling in one or both when doing so.

First you must start with the postural issues contributing to your problem. We want to get rid of those rounded shoulders. It is not as simple as simply “standing up straight” since you likely would be able to do that more readily if you weren’t being pulled down into that position from your existing muscle tightnesses. I put together a video specifically addressing this that I want you to watch along with this one to make sure you get this first step right. You can find the link to that right here…

How to Fix Rounded Shoulders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLwTC-lAJws

Next you have to ensure that you have not only adequate strength of the rotator cuff muscles that pull your shoulder into external rotation but also that you have the mobility of the shoulder to get into external rotation in the first place. Many will do their rotator cuff exercises without really having the mobility into ER that is needed to get your arm there. That said, with the one drill I show you here, you can easily work on increasing the external shoulder rotation mobility that you are going to need to start moving in the direction of pain free shoulder movement.

From here, you want to make sure you attack the lat. The lats are often thought of as a “back” muscle but they are almost more importantly a shoulder muscle. This is because one of the key attachment points of the lats is the back of the upper arm. Given the fact that this muscle also travels down and attaches to the spine in both the mid back and lower back as well as the pelvis and the iliac crest via fascia, you quickly see that in order to get your arms fully overhead without issue you need to have great flexibility in the lats. The tissue length and quality both need to be addressed and they can be with this one band and foam roller combo. Be sure to work on the muscle both from the side and straight on as shown.

Finally, at this point (and only at this point) should you try and restore your thoracic extension. You can do so however without compromising any of the work you have already done. By doing the movement I show you in step four, you will be able to keep the rotator cuff active, increase the stretch on the lats and get into spinal thoracic extension at the same time. It’s not complicated, you just have to be consistent to be sure you get rid of this pain once and for all.

If you find this to be helpful, be sure to leave a comment and let me know. I love to hear from those who use our programs and suggestions to not just get rid of long standing joint pain but more importantly start getting back to feeling like they did years ago when they didn’t have these pains an