The Overhead Position, Part 2

Exercises to activate and strengthen the lower traps and serratus anterior

So having discussed the role of both the lower fibres of trapezius and the serratus anterior in upwardly rotating the scapula to allow movement of the arms overhead, I now plan to show a few exercises which should help get these muscles working as they should. The name of the game with these is 'feeling' the exercise; what I mean by this is concentrating your mind on which muscles are effecting the movement; ensuring form is perfect; to this end it is not necessary and indeed counter-productive to load on weight. Besides the fact that no-one cares how much weight you use for esoteric rehab exercises, it will also serve to force your body to compensate and revert to stronger muscles, missing the point of the exercise altogether.

The first exercise is the Prone Y, a component of the popular YTWL complex. The Y portion of the complex in particular is designed to teach activation of the lower fibres of trapezius.  To perform this exercise, the torso needs to be approximately parallel to the floor. You can either lean over, keeping your spine extended, or lie on a bench. Let your arms hang down in front of you. To initiate the movement, squeeze the scapulae back and down (retract and depress). Now, lift your arms out to the side, maintaining an angle of about 135 degrees to your body. Your thumbs should be pointing towards the ceiling. Once your arms have been lifted as far as possible, try to make them as long as possible. You should not be shrugging your shoulders to your ears - there should be a feeling on intense contraction between the scapulae. Lower the arms and repeat.



The next exercise is the Scap Pressup. This starts off similarly to a normal pressup. Assume a strong planked position. Now, lower your body by retracting and depressing your scapulae, keeping your elbows locked out. Only your scapulae should move; this is quite hard to do at first but will come with practice. Once you have lowered as far as possible, reverse the movement by protracting your scapulae as hard as possible and driving upwards. The range-of-motion is quite small so don't be tempted to extend it by either bending at the elbows or sagging at the waist. Keep it tight and activate the serratus.




This next exercise is also one for the Serratus Anterior. I have to credit James Jowsey with showing this to me. I'm not sure if it has a name. Stand about 18 inches or so from a wall. Lean forward and place both forearms in contact with the wall, having your elbows flexed to about 90 degrees. To start the movement, slide one arm upwards, keeping the hand and forearm in contact with the wall at all times. Drive the shoulder forward during this movement to further activate the serratus. If done correctly you should feel intense contraction under the armpit on the side of the chest wall. To aid in feeling this, take the non-working hand off the wall and place it just down from the armpit on the side of the chest. You should feel the muscular slips of the serratus bulge out as you perform the motion.



Finally, I've included the Scap Wall-slide. This exercise generally improves scapular retraction and humeral external rotation, as well as actively stretching the pecs and lats and improving mobility of the thoracic spine. We'll get on to why these are such good things later; suffice to say that you get a lot of bang for your buck and should therefore do it. It is a hard exercise; as you can see in the video, I am only capable of a fairly limited range-of-motion. Even this causes intense contraction of the muscles retracting the scapulae and extending the thoracic spine. To perform the movement, sit against a wall. Keep the full length of your spine in contact with the wall at all times. Retract your scapulae and put your arms in contact with the wall, elbows flexed at 90 degrees, so you form an L shape with each arm. Now, keeping all the arm in contact with the wall, slowly slide your arms up the wall. The  forearms should remain at 90 degrees to the floor at all times. Move only as far as flexibility allows, then slide the arms back down. This is tough, but persist and shoulder mobility will improve dramatically.



These four exercises would be an excellent part of a warm-up before a workout that makes extensive use of the shoulders. If you're training right, this will be every workout. They are worth doing on rest days also, particularly if you get shoulder pain.

The Overhead Position, part 1

The overhead position is seen in numerous sports, such as weightlifting, swimming, tennis and gymnastics, to name but a few. In simple terms it involves maximal flexion of the shoulder, varying degrees of scapula elevation and upward rotation, and, depending on the sport, varying degrees of humeral rotation.

Common to these sports, as well as any others that make extensive use of the overhead position, are shoulder injuries. The reason for this will be explored in more detail in a later post. What I want to discuss first is how a proper overhead position is achieved.

Firstly, the humerus must be maximally flexed. The muscles primarily responsible for this are the anterior and lateral fibres of the deltoid. The anatomy of the scapula means that the humerus alone can only flex to just pass parallel with the ground. To raise the hand further requires the scapula itself to move, to allow the humerus to effectively flex further.
The image above shows the left scapula. The head of the humerus sits on the glenoid fossa, with the coracoid process anteriorly and medial to it and the acromion process rising above it, to meet the end of the clavicle (collarbone).
We can see, looking from the front and from the side, that the coracoid process does not obstruct humeral flexion. The acromion, however, will eventually get in the way and unless the whole complex of scapula and humerus moves, no further raising of the arm overhead will be possible. This process is known as Subacromial Impingement, which may lead to impingement syndrome, a common complaint in overhead athletes. The movement of the scapula required is upward rotation and posterior tilting.
This effectively moves the acromion out of the way, so the humerus can achieve proper overhead position. The muscles chiefly responsible for these movements of the scapula are the lower and upper fibres of the Trapezius (lower fibres in red) and the Serratus Anterior.

Together, these muscles rotate the scapula to point the glenoid towards the sky, clearing the acromion process from above the humerus and allowing the overhead position to be reached. The following video demonstrates the movement of the overhead press, which exemplifies to movements of humerus and scapula necessary to achieve the overhead position. Notice the rotation of the scapula and contractions of trapezius (from the back) and serratus (from the side) that occur. Failure of these muscles to contract in an organised fashion will result in faulty elevation of the arm and often contribute to subacromial impingement.



A common finding is that these muscles are shut down as a result of poor posture, poor training habits and inflexibilities and/or overdominance of muscles elsewhere. For example, the lower fibres of the trapezius are typically weak and inhibited. As we know, the upper fibres on their own can achieve scapular elevation, whereas the lower fibres on their own will depress and retract the scapulae. It is only together that they achieve upward rotation.

The upper traps are typically active at a low level almost all of the time; whenever we sit badly with our shoulders shrugged, or when we are carrying heavy shopping. Over time they become more dominant, and the lower traps become inhibited to prevent stretching of the tight, short upper traps. Now the lower traps don't contract as they should and upward rotation of the scapulae is compromised. The upper traps contract as normal, but without the firing of the lower traps, the scapulae just elevate rather than rotate upwards. This fails to clear the acromion process from the path of the humerus, and the head of the humerus thus impinges under the acromion.