Bang For Buck – Shoulder Mobility
The shoulder joint is a very complex and articulate joint.
Not only can the shoulder joint go through 360 degrees of motion, but it’s basically only held together by muscle, tendon and ligament connective tissue – unlike the more robust ball and socket, hinge, saddle and pivot joints. This leaves the joint vulnerable to instability, with the scapula and its surrounding musculature being the main driver for shoulder stability.
A lot of the time people blame a certain exercise for being too risky, when it’s actually a person’s lack of physical preparation, conditioning or knowledge that got them to the problem in the first place.
Think of it this way – most exercises that we do today have been performed for decades, not years. All of the “real” risky and stupid exercises that pop up in today’s era get mocked straight away and forgotten. The ones that work, stay.
Always ask yourself “Why am I doing this exercise? How will it help me towards my goals?”
A lot of the time people just want learn party tricks from a video they saw on social media, which is fair enough – but be realistic to your current physical preparation before attempting what someone else is doing that has a completely different work capacity and skill set to you.
When training with weights, in most cases if a weight is too heavy for you, you won’t be able to pick it up properly or work with it using proper form. Most people are smart enough to know when a weight is too heavy and usually (or should I say, hopefully) back the weight off. The difference with bodyweight training, is it’s easy to get into leveraged positions that you simply aren’t ready for. An example would be trying to work with Front or Back Levers before your shoulders and elbows are properly prepared. This coupled with people having the impression that just because it’s “bodyweight”, they’ll be fine.
In the discipline of bodyweight training and conditioning (as well as others), having an unstable and weak joint or working with progressions you simply aren’t ready for can make it very easy to come across niggles, pain and annoyances without the right amount of guidance and preparation. These small injuries can leave you hindered from quality training for weeks, if not months or more if left unattended. It’s good to train hard, but training smart is the key to longevity.
When the body sends a pain or discomfort signal, it’s usually because there’s something going on that shouldn’t be.
If we look at it from a shoulder joint perspective, it can be from misalignment in gliding surfaces, impingement, tight or immobile muscles, muscle compensation – among other reasons and complications.
It’s only ignorant and negligent to your body to push on through without trying to fix the problem. Let the ego go, fix the problem – in this day and age there’s lots of resources out there to play around with. Learn your body, because ultimately you’re stuck with it. If you break this one, you don’t get another one unfortunately!
The Shoulder Dislocate Exercise
In my years of working with a broad range of people, I've found the shoulder dislocate to be one of the best “bang for your buck” exercises for shoulder health, mobility and strength. It's easy to teach, and it reaps many benefits. Not only will it put your shoulder joint through its full range of motion to aid in gaining/maintaining mobility, but it will also help strengthen it along the way in all of those small areas and corners you may not otherwise be addressing. Performing them weighted doubles the benefit, which I’ll go over later in the article.
A lot of people have strength and mobility in specific ranges of motion, most commonly from in front of the body to overhead – such as pushups, handstands, rows, pullups etc. But, where a high percentage of people lack is from behind the body to overhead – such as rear support, back lever, German hangs, full depth dips, muscle up transitions and the like.
This is exactly where this exercise fits in, strengthening and mobilising the shoulder in full extension.
The shoulder dislocate is commonly overlooked in a lot of training programs, and should be included for anyone that cares about shoulder health.
I can guarantee you that your shoulder health and tissue quality will increase from performing these daily. It’s a big call, but I’m more than certain because of the amount of shoulders I’ve worked with and seen such great improvements with. They serve as a great tool for shoulder prehabilitation (avoiding injury) as well as rehabilitation (fixing injury).
The scapula is the king of straight arm strength and shoulder stability.
A lot of people think that when their arms bend in most straight arm movements (eg, during ring support holds), that it’s because of lack of arm strength – when it’s commonly weak or compromised scapula that cause the arms to bend and take the load. The dislocate works the scapula through nearly all of its axis motions – elevation, depression, protraction, retraction, rotation, and some form of tilting.
For those who aren’t acquainted with them yet – the shoulder dislocate is performed by holding a dowel/stick, resistance band or towel in front of you horizontally, and effectively moving your hands from in front of your body to behind your back (in a circular or “dislocating” motion).
Here you can see a video of someone performing them with a resistance band:
GUIDELINES
It’s preferable if you perform them with a stick, rather than a band or towel. This is because you can measure your progress as well as get some extra stretching in the forearms and wrist. The notes I write here will be based on using a stick/dowel, but if you don’t have access to a stick you can still use a resistance band or towel.
If you are unable to lift the stick above head level, even at the widest grip, use a thin resistance band instead. This gives the allowance of increased grip width from pulling the band apart, and will make it easier to pass through to behind your body.
Perform them every day, as part of your warm up. I’ve found one set of 15 to be a good start, nice and slow. Perform them on your rest days if you lack shoulder mobility. You could also integrate these with some hanging work to help loosen up the chest and lats. If you feel tight during your working sets of an exercise, throw some dislocates in while you are resting.
Start out wide – very wide. You shouldn’t be feeling any joint pain, discomfort, or hearing any clicking or grinding. But even if you are so wide that you are almost touching your head with the stick, it’s ok. Mobility is a long-term endeavour, and takes patience.
You only need to remain an index finger and thumb grip, but for an additional stretch to your forearm muscles and wrist joint you can use a full grip. You may find at the start it’s hard to hold a full grip when bringing the stick behind the body, and that’s ok. Try your best.
Keep your arms straight during the whole motion. When you bend your arms, your scapula won’t be working effectively. It’s the body’s way of compensating for lack of something - whether it's mobility, stability or strength. If this happens it’s usually because you’re trying to work with a width that is too narrow for you.
Keep your ribcage pulled down and squeeze your glutes – think "hollow body" position. This will ensure that the shoulder joint is getting a sufficient amount of stretch, and prevent any excess lumbar spine extension. It will also help your body learn the pattern to hold a hollow body while moving limbs.
Elevate the shoulders when going overhead to give added scapula elevation and trapezius activation.
Over the course of weeks to months, slowly bring your grip width in. Don't rush this!
For best results and quickest adaptation, perform them weighted. You do this by starting off with a 1kg weight plate, and putting the stick through it so that the weight balances in the middle of the stick. Do not go up in weight until you reach around 1.75x of your shoulder width. Only when you do reach this width, you can then go up to 2kg and so on. Generally, working up to 5-7.5kg is enough for most of the adult population. Don’t be a cowboy with this, otherwise you will pay the price in injury.
As a guideline, if you are unable to perform 3-5 pushups (on your feet), then stick to unweighted dislocates until you build the sufficient strength.
Always perform them slowly. A rep forward and back should take you 5 seconds. You won’t get the benefits if you speed through the exercise.
These can be performed in reverse (also called an inlocate), by starting the dislocate with the stick behind you and with the palms facing forward. This will emphasise the forearms and biceps due to the internal shoulder rotation.
For the advanced users you can also try performing them sitting on the floor or in a squat to force a neutral spine and deactivate the lower extremities from helping you. Even laying prone (on your stomach) will force a different effect due to angle changes. If you find a certain variation that emphasises more of a stretch or is more difficult, then it’s probably good to add it into the mix.
Disclaimer regarding previous shoulder injuries: This is the internet, so giving medical advice isn’t going to be accurate without getting a physical examination. But generally, if you have a tear in your shoulder (heads up to those who get “real” shoulder dislocations from time to time) or other known problematic issues that cause pain, then perform these very slowly with an empty stick without worrying about reducing your grip width or adding weight until you have the all clear from a physical therapist. If you feel pain, stop. Never ever work through pain! If you have a small muscle tweak or strain, these will be great for you since it will get the muscle working and force blood supply to help with repair.
Thanks for reading!
