Some Practical Shoulder Health Tips

I have a nice question in from former WG-FIT member Dave on shoulders.

The timing on this is great as I've had a run on clients with shoulder injuries the last few months.

And there is a quote from Pavel Tstasouline that always made me smile:

"Put your hand up if you have had a shoulder injury, if you don't put your hand up its probably because you can't "

Now for Dave's question:

“Howya' Dave!?

As a content suggestion I'd love some shoulder maintenance pointers as an aging long time supporter! I'm pretty sure you've already got that content somewhere perhaps?

I've really had to pay more attention to the old shoulders and want to keep the overhead press going as long as I can! I'm not struggling with the press, but I do think about the day when maybe it won't be possible....

All the best,

Dave”

This line:

“I do think about the day when maybe it won't be possible....”

I love that line.

Have you ever thought that something you are currently doing that you enjoy doing might become impossible for you at some point?

That overhead press may disappear.

That high kick might get lower and lower

The run becomes a shuffle becomes a walk

Ageing is inevitable, but we have some agency over getting old.

Some…

The good news is, if you train and train across a variety of movements, you're already doing much of what is needed to stave off the inevitable decline.

With the expectation of long term injuries, they may need some special attention. Some particular time spent on them.

The overhead press is a controversial lift in the fitness world.

And I've never understood why. As I ran WG-FIT as a kettlebell focused training centre, the overhead press and overhead lifting in general is simply kettlebell 101.

And while many in the strength world are denigrating the press for being bad for shoulders or causing pain in the shoulders.

Our WG-FIT crew, barring a couple of exceptions, all developed very good shoulder mobility and strength to put weight overhead.

I'd argue developing a good overhead press beats 90% of other rotator cuff work.

So what is the secret?

In my mind the scapula, or shoulder blade, is the key to the shoulder. I've often said the scapula IS the shoulder.

Something I would go into at length about on workshops.

When the scapula moves well, and we find a nice interaction between the scapula and arm, we generally find pain decreases and strength increases.

The scapula does 6 things:

Glides up and down

Glides forward and backwards

Rotates up and down

Tilts forward and backwards

And as it does so, the arm bone aka the humerus, also moves.

So does the collar bone. But that complicates things, so don't worry about him.

Here's where Dave and many others probably struggle.

If the Scapula is a car, the road it drives along would be the rib cage.

And the rib cage is your thoracic spine.

How well does your thoracic spine move?

In many (most?) cases, folks with limited shoulder mobility also have limited spine mobility. Freeing up the spine often improves the shoulder.

So here's a few common interventions for opening up spine movement and giving the scapula a better chance to move:

Child's pose with breathing.

This gets the arms overhead.

Start on all fours, with hands slightly forward of the shoulders.

Now sit the hips back until they rest on your feet, as you sit back you may feel the hands slide back a bit.

Try walk the hands out again, just so it feels like a gentle stretch.

Now pay attention to the breath, as you inhale can you feel the belly press into the thighs? And release as you exhale?

Can you feel the back expand with the in and relax with the out?

Spend 30 seconds to a few minutes here.

Doorway chest stretch

Place a hand against the doorframe, palm facing up.

Now step through the door so the arm gets pulled behind you.

Play with how high the hand is on the doorframe, above or below the shoulder will offer different stretches.

Step back and forth, alternate legs feel where the tight lines are and spend more time there.

No need to hold, this isn’t really stretching, it's move in move out.

Go until you feel change.

Doorframe back stretch

Lots to play with here.

Hold the doorframe (or any solid upright) with one hand and lean back. Now with the other hand reach across yourself and feel the back muscles stretch.

Again play with positions, reach to different points, put one leg behind you, or the other.

Play looking for either tight lines or lines that have no sensation at all.

The more you play with these and don't think that there is a single perfect position the better you will do.

So thats a warm up,

What's next?

Next is finding the press that works for you.

It could be a barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, landmine.

It could be one arm or both. It could be see-saw where one comes down as the other goes up.

It may be a push press with legs to drive up, but a controlled down.

And if you're a kettlebell user, definitely try bottoms up pressing.

Last thing and for shoulder health this is massively underrated is a thing the gymnastics world call straight arm strength.

This is loading the arm and moving through the shoulder without bending the elbow.

This means motion must happen in the shoulder and scapula.

From things like Turkish Get Ups and Windmills to hanging scap ups, scapula push ups, L-sits etc.

Crawling could also fit here.

So, breathe better, mobilise and then lift.

It's simple, just not easy.

But then, it's no fun if it's easy eh?

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.davehedges.net

Is discipline and being consistent with training simply checking in with your values?

Today's question comes from something I took a note of either in an email or social media conversation and added it to my topics list without taking note of who sent it in, if it was you, let me know:

“Is discipline and being consistent with training simply checking in with your values?”

This is one of those questions that really gives pause for thought.

I've had highly dedicated athletes struggle to commit to S&C work or rehab work.

I've had people come to me for help with injury and not follow through with their homework

I've failed to keep some of my own promises and follow through on things.

And not many would describe me as ill disciplined

So, yeah, discipline is quite possibly a values question.

Or maybe an identity question.

When people bring up the topic of values, usually I groan because we usually then get a wishy washy lecture about self improvement and manifestation.

But values are real.

I would say values are a way of describing your identity.

By that I mean the success guru's will have you pull values out of your imagination which of course makes them impossible to live up to.

Whereas in my head, values are a description of who you are and what you do, with a nod to how that could be better.

And we all train to be better in some way.

Could it be that training is successful because it genuinely underpins our values and therefore our identity.

When our identity is challenged, by injury or other change in circumstances that may lie outside our control, our values are challenged and our discipline can crumble.

I see this a lot with athletes.

A big injury rocks them, threatening to take away their identity.

For them having a strong support network is essential to them getting back on their feet and committing to the rehab work.

If you are familiar with the BioPsychoSocial model, this ought to make sense.

Bio refers to the physical body, where most medical practice works

Psycho refers to the mind, your personal psychology. Possibly this is what we are trying to affect with talk about values.

Social refers to your network, who is in your corner, and how those peoples values affect you.

A good coach or therapist works in all three areas to help people.

If you're out on your own, either because you genuinely are alone or you have withdrawn from people, then you lose the social part of the model.

If you believe you will fail or you can't beat whatever the challenge is, you lose the psychology part.

And more often than not it's the bio element that is under threat and the reason you need discipline and commitment.

It's a complex topic when you dig into it.

But to simplify and to hopefully give you something actionable, it's worth sitting back and really considering who you are from time to time.

And what better time than at the start of a new year?

Rather than setting resolutions, set values.

What makes you tick?

How did you become the you that you currently are?

Who supports you?

Who doesn't support you?

If you started over again, in a new town maybe with new people around you, would you still be you or might something change?

What are you without your sport, without the gym?

To use a quote from the Avengers:

Steve Rogers: “Big man in a suit of armour. Take that off, what are you?”

Tony Stark: “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

We maybe don't need to be as glib as Tony Stark, but maybe he's onto something.

Without the Iron Man suit, he knows who is.

So should you.

And when you do, the question of discipline becomes moot.

You are a person who does the work or you are not. Discipline has nothing to do with it.

So yeah, values.

They're important

But only if they're real and embodied.

Regards

Dave

www.davehedges.net

Why I lost Motivation for the Gym

JT wrote:

“I was just reflecting over the past few weeks really in term of my motivation and why I kinda lost it with the gym after the wedding and I quickly realized it was linked to having a goal and the routine going out the window.

So I have been thinking a lot about motivation, goals and all of that. So I have decided that I two goals that I would like to achieve............”

The reason I want to talk about this is that I 100% relate.

My whole life, I have trained, but mostly with a goal in mind.

I'm not an aesthetics guy, so training has always had some kind of performance element to it.

Like JT, and I'm sure many of you on my email list, I started training to support my sport.

My sport was Karate, which I absolutely loved, but I needed something extra to help me be better at Karate.

And when my instructor, the late great Jack Parker uttered that life changing sentence “Dave, you need to get strong” I started to explore the wider reaches of physical culture.

I ran for stamina.

I lifted for strength and power

Both of which I needed for Karate.

Years later, I ran or mountain biked as my main sport as I lived in the Lake District. Once again, lifting helped me feel strong on the climbs and helped me with speed and potentially injuries.

I could go on.

But the gym, or rather my strength training, was always to serve a purpose.

Running and cycling the same, except for when I lived in the mountains when they were an activity in themselves.

So without a goal, why train?

If you're a competitive person (you're reading this, of course you are!) then it's training to compete that drives you.

Lifting or whatever without a goal seems empty.

I have to say, it took me forever to learn to get past this.

So what drives my training now?

Partly habit.

Partly the enjoyment of pushing myself

Partly the release, the opportunity to be an aggressive snarling animal for an hour

And very much for the simple fact that since I am now 47 years old with a list of injuries, if I don't lift and move, my body will deteriorate very quickly.

So for me it's to feel healthy and vital.

Yes, I keep my martial mindset.

I'm protective by nature, so being physically competent is part of that nature.

All of which boils down to the idea of maintaining certain minimum standards.

Minimum standards are the numbers you can hit after rolling out of bed.

Not PR's

Not what you can do after getting hyped up

Not what you can do after a long warm up

It's what you can do now.

Right now.

Maintaining a set of minimum standards has been the best metric to ensure I train right.

And to direct my training.

Any standard that falls behind gets moved to the top of the training pile.

Between this and setting the occasional challenge of a goal to knock off is how I manage myself.

It sidesteps the motivation question

It does require discipline, but actually not that much.

It's simple

Just not easy.

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.davehedges.net