Injuries, Rehab and Self-reliance

Firstly, it has been a long time since I last posted. The reasons for this are multiple, but can mainly be traced back to laziness. I hope to put up some more videos of shoulder exercises in the near future and some mobilisations that I have found particularly useful.

One of the most important things I feel I have learned during my training and rehabbing of injuries along the way is the importance of understanding your particular problem and experimenting with exercises, stretches and other methods to try and find what works best for you. As an example, I discovered the other day a mobilisation for the thoracic spine, ribs and scapula that produced more improvement in my overhead position more in a few days then I have seen in months. I haven't been having any particular problems with my shoulders recently, but this has given me improved scapulothoracic mechanics to help avoid problems in the future. This mobilisation was discovered free-of-charge on the brilliant Mobility Wod , which I cannot recommend highly enough.

This has not been an uncommon experience for me. Whenever I have experienced an injury, my initial reaction is to research it; find out what causes it, how it presents and what treatment options exist, etc. The more you educate yourself about an injury, the better placed you are, both physically and mentally, to do something about it. I will then start rehab as soon as possible, experimenting until I find something that helps. It is true that we can injure ourselves badly in the gym, injuries that require expert input. But on the flipside, it is possible to suffer significant discomfort and drop in performance for something that is actually easily remediable. A classic example is a muscular trigger point; when released, the pain disappears dramatically.

This is why it is so important to stretch, to get on the foam roller or hockey balls, to try different exercises and see if you can't fix the problem yourself. To this end, expert input can be very useful. If you have done yourself a mischief, then get some who knows what they are doing to take a look at you. Better still, get several opinions. Just like rehab exercises, no one person or style of therapy holds all the keys to fixing your injuries and what works for one person may be totally disparate from what works with another. Get advice on your posture, strengths and weaknesses, then go work on them yourself, empowered with the new knowledge. Similarly, if what are you doing isn't working, discard it and try something else.

There are a huge number of ways to treat musculoskeletal dysfunction out there. Find what works for you and don't stop searching if you haven't yet found it.

The Dumbbell Row

The Dumbbell Row has got to be one of the few good exercises bodybuilding has given us. At my gym it still carries a certain amount of stigma; however, as a tool for developing balanced strength across the shoulder girdle, it is invaluable. Most people are much stronger at 'pushing' or 'pressing' than they are at 'pulling'. Coupled with poor posture throughout the day, this leads to tight, strong pectorals and other large internal rotators of the shoulder, coupled with long, weak scapular retractors such as the middle and low fibres of trapezius.

Correctly performed Rows involve retraction and some depression of the scapula, followed immediately by humeral extension to bring the dumbbell (or kettlebell, 3 litre bottle of milk, etc) toward the lower chest and abdomen. It's important to emphasise the shoulder blade should be pulled back and down; if you are shrugging the scapula up and hyperextending the humerus, you won't recruit the lower fibres of trapezius. The elbow will not travel far behind the torso if done right. In fact, the degree the arm moves doesn't actually matter. It just allows people to get a bit of momentum going, allowing training of scapular retraction with heavier weights.

Do this exercise right and load it up. Sets of 10-20 with 40kg or more will build excellent strength in the lower traps and correct imbalances across the shoulder girdle. If it's good enough for the ridiculously successful Chinese weightlifting team, it's good enough for you.

Exercises for Scapula Movement

Here's a few more exercises that you can add to your warm-up, after training or even load them up and use them in your workout. They all have in common the aim of developing your ability to control the movement of the scapulae in isolation, in the process strengthening the muscles responsible and hopefully as a by-product preventing shoulder pain and injury. As with the other exercises I described in the last post, it helps to try and 'feel' these as much as possible. What I mean by this is concentrating on which muscles are working, how your scapulae move and how you can alter the movement by moving the scapulae into different places.

Scap Dips

Scap Pullups

Scap Protraction

Scap Retraction 

Band Protractions 

See how with each of these exercises, scapula movement occurs with minimal movement at other joints. The exception is the band protraction. I included this one because it combines protraction of the scapulae, strengthening serratus anterior, with a nice stretch of pectoralis major and other humeral flexors when the arms are behind the body. Efforts should to emphasise scapular protraction over humeral transverse flexion in this exercise to minimise the contribution of pec major; the stretch should assist this.