# A couple shoulder therapy moves worth looking at



## Mythos (Jun 7, 2018)

I wanted to share a couple of movements that have really helped my shoulder out. 

Just for a little background, I have never had any major shoulder injuries like a lot of the guys here have, but I was starting to develop some nagging issues with my left shoulder. It would get painful for me now and then over the last 8 years and I would ignore it until it got bad enough that I had to back off almost all presses for a week or two.

Well, this last year I had a long time elbow tendon issue that became seriously crippling and after that I decided that I was going to be more on top of any connective tissue injuries and try to take care of them before they got to a critical level.

So this year when my bench was going up and my shoulder started to act up again, getting some pain and popping, I looked around for some things I could do and of all the things I looked at there couple of movements that really made a big difference for me and I’ll be doing them forever. I swear to you that if I do these exercises, my shoulder pain recedes and almost disappears regardless of what I’m doing in the gym. (It used to be that it would flare up like clockwork as I started pushing my limits on bar bench and incline dumbbell bench. Conversely, if I slack on doing them, it starts to act up again.. so I’m almost 100% sure that it’s these exercises that are doing the trick. Also, it just instantly feels like they put your shoulder in a better position and the pops feel really good.

_The first one_ IMO doesn’t seem to do a whole lot unless your shoulder is really out of whack, and as long as I do the second one, I generally don’t have to do this one. This did help me out a lot though when I first did it. Basically you find a solid chair or object about waist high, I use the back of my couch, push down on it and as you keep pushing down, start stepping backwards slowly until your torso is almost horizontal to the ground. About the time you get close to being horizontal, if your shoulders are really out, you should feel a nice pop and I feel some relief pretty quickly. I got this movement from these YouTube PTs channel, and yes they are kind of dorky but they know what they are doing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYliVxBFUac



_The second one_ is the one I really like and it’s almost like a diagnostic tool as well. This one will make your shoulder pop too and tbh it can actually hurt a little at first, but after doing it a while there’s no doubt that it’s a positive thing. The most interesting thing is how it demonstrates that there’s something off mobility wise with the shoulder that is giving me issues, and how the more that the mobility issue goes away, the less pain I have in that shoulder.

It goes like this: find a good flat wall with a lot of space; put your back to the wall and at about waist level make your elbows and your index fingers touch the wall. This should make your arms kind of look like a W. Now keeping that same position and keeping your index fingers and elbows touching the wall, raise your arms up over your head until your hands touch.  I learned this one from none other than Athlean X, who I think most of us can agree has some interesting shite on his videos sometimes and generally gives pretty good advice.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsmeXwHu6W0

The first time I did this I noticed right away what he talked about in the video: on the side that I was having the shoulder trouble the elbow pulls forward off the wall a lot as you go up. Meanwhile on the other side it pulled off a little but it was much easier to keep it flush. WTF! So like he said I did more reps and kept trying to keep that elbow against the wall. As I was doing that I could feel a series of small pops and after each rep it got easier and easier to hold the elbow down. After I could keep the elbow flush with no problem I stopped doing reps and went about my day. Something definitely felt different right away, and it felt a little tender at first, but then later I was amazed at how little my shoulder was bothering me! Now I do this whenever I feel tight or the first sign of pain in that shoulder and without fail that side elbow is pulling off the wall a bit when Im having trouble with that shoulder. If my shoulder feels good and I do it, the elbow won’t pull off the wall and the shoulder won’t give any pops. 

I’m not going to pretend to know what exactly is going on in the joint that these moves help; what I got from these guys is that basically that the end of the bone gets rotated a little bit forward due to posture or muscle imbalance, and this causes a some of the connective tissue to get rubbed and pinched during movement… I guess this is the infamous impingement that’s mentioned from time to time.  From my experience I can say this explanation seems to jive pretty well with the way the pain progresses and feels.

So I hope that this helps out a few of you guys that are just starting to have this type of shoulder issue and you want to keep them under control. I wish that I had known about these 6 or 7 years ago, I could have gone a lot harder and would have had to take a lot less time off presses. Give em a shot! (Obviously if you have major shoulder injury better proceed with caution.)

M


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## stonetag (Jun 7, 2018)

I really think the guy in the second vid. is on the level, and to the point, watched a few of his.


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## Mythos (Jun 7, 2018)

stonetag said:


> I really think the guy in the second vid. is on the level, and to the point, watched a few of his.



I've picked up a few useful things from him. I think he used to be a trainer or PT for an MLB team.


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## snake (Jun 8, 2018)

Thanks for the write up Myth. I don't have nor have I ever had shoulder problems. I contribute the lack of shoulder problem to the lack of OHP or MP's. Those movements just never felt good to me. I also felt 75% of the guys over train their shoulders anyway.

The first 2 guys in the Vid, ugh, I can't taken them. The second Vid guy is good. i have seem many of his Vids and he seems to know what he's talking about.


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## BrotherJ (Jun 8, 2018)

Awesome, thank you for the write-up. I've had nagging shoulder issues since I dislocated it about 6 years ago. It's dislocated a few times since then and has always set me back. I've learned to just avoid any manner of weight above my head (OHP, pull-downs, raises etc...)


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## Mythos (Jun 9, 2018)

Thanks for the feedback guys. I dialed back ohp a lot too over the last few years


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## Beezy (Dec 23, 2018)

I’ve been dealing with bad shoulder pain on any incline pressing lately. Glad I ran across this. 
Thanks


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## Straight30weight (Dec 23, 2018)

Thanks for bumping this beezy. Gonna be taking a look at it.


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