Shoulder Health, Maintenance, and Exercise: A Series on Shoulder Mastery Pt. 3
But it goes deeper. Now that your shoulders are internally rotated, we start to add chinks to the armor. Internally rotated shoulders fires up the traps. There is a reason every super bro you have ever seen has gigantic traps; overdeveloped pecs, internally rotated shoulders, and traps that do not turn off.
In case you missed it:
Physiology and Causes of Injury
Overdeveloped Chest
We all love the bench press. I am willing to wager that every single person in the world, at some point in their lives, has been asked, “How much do you bench?”
The bench press is so awesome. It builds a huge chest, really helps develop the lats, and is a major player in strength development. If you spend enough time benching and do it really well, you will be able to confuse enough people on Instagram that you know everything there is to know about strength training.
Unfortunately, creating this InstaBody comes with a few drawbacks. As the pec develops, the added musculature and tightness can pull the shoulder forward causing the shoulder to internally rotate.
Coupled with the increasing sitting that you do at work, in the car, and on the couch, bench pressing compounds the internal rotation issue. With enough time, the body becomes unable to counterbalance the strength of the chest and the universal start position ceases to exist. Problems compounding problems.
But it goes deeper. Now that your shoulders are internally rotated, we start to add chinks to the armor. Internally rotated shoulders fires up the traps. There is a reason every super bro you have ever seen has gigantic traps; overdeveloped pecs, internally rotated shoulders, and traps that do not turn off.
Oh but there is more. Traps that are unable to relax also trigger the head into a forward lean. Our head weighs 11 pounds and if the traps are constantly firing, the head is forward, and putting a ton of pressure on our spine.
When we add more pressure to our spine, our sympathetic nervous system, the one in charge of fight or flight response, never turns off and is in a constant state of stress. The sympathetic nervous system stores all that stress in the middle of our back and can lead to a lifetime of back problems.
So, is bench press and developing pushing muscles bad? Not at all, but we have to be intelligent about the way in which we create programs to help you deal with pain and rehabbing injury.
Improper Lat Mobility
The lat also plays a major role in the health of our shoulder. With the arm extended overhead, a healthy shoulder will be externally rotated with the armpit facing forward. Additionally, the shoulder is able to extend into a more active position by elevating from the lat and shrugging the shoulder to the ear. When putting a barbell or stabilizing an object overhead, the lats provide maximum strength and stability to an already strong, externally rotated shoulder.
Of course, this is on a healthy shoulder. The majority of shoulders we see lack mobility in the tissue which can cause a few issues.
To illustrate what we mean by a lack of mobility in the tissues, raise your arms overhead. Initially, this should not be a problem. Now, have a friend grab a small piece of ski next to your lat. While they hold the skin, raise your arm. You will notice it is impossible to reach full extension of the arm above the shoulder without feeling the skin pull on the pinched area. This is an exaggerated version of what happens to muscle and tissue that is tight and hinders range of motion in the overhead position.
Similar to the over developed chest, there is a chain of events causing pain throughout your body. The body is a system and any time there is a chink is the system, the effects are felt everywhere.
So you have tight lats and you come to the gym. You start to move weight overhead but are unable to get that shoulder fully externally rotated because your lats are tight. But the weight has to move so if the shoulder is not working, the rest of the body has to compensate. Most likely, the body will over extend in the midline to allow the weight overhead. Overextension in the midline compresses the spine and things can get very bad, very quickly.
If you have ever heard that crunch before, you know how scary having tight lats can be on your overhead position.
Future Articles
Weak Rear Delts
Text Neck
Programming
