Shoulder Prehab

[Travis]

I'm sure my weakest joints are my shoulder, and as they say, you're only as strong as your weakest link. I've never had any issues beyond occasionally feeling some minor shoulder joint pain, in which case I reluctantly lay off until it gets better. Sometimes it's caused after strenuous training, and other times it happens after a night of sleeping on my side (which comes from compressing the joint, I suppose). It happens in either shoulder.

I've been advancing cautiously, not pushing it, resting when I think I should. Can anyone offer some shoulder prehab movements along the lines of wrist pushups and the like for some specific conditioning?

[Blairbob]

Shoulder stick dislocates and halos. Skin the cats on rings. Hang 1/2 turns on a bar. Hanging from a bar or rings. Cuban presses ( external rotation exercise ).

[Travis]

Thanks, Blair. Is the halo the dislocate variation in which you turn the stick around your head in a circle? And I'm not too sure what the 1/2 turn is.

[braindx]

Heh, it depends on what your problem is. Shoulder has the most mobility of ANY joint and is therefore subject to many problems depending on what's wrong.

Just saying you have shoulder pain and how to fix it tells us nothing.

[Blairbob]

it's the circly version.

is your shoulder weak or is it tight? lay on the ground arms like a T to your body. Now raise your forearm 90 degrees of the ground so the thumb is pointing at your ear. How low can the forearm go in towards your feet or toward the direction of your head?

how is your shoulder flexibility when sitting against a wall with your back flat to the wall? Can you keep your shoulder into your ear when standing? there are some other shoulder flexibility tests like how high you raise your arms while laying on the front of your body ( though this also tests shoulder strength ) and how far they will hang down while laying on a bench and not allowing your back to arch off the bench.

[Travis]

Well, when there is pain, it's mostly at the back of my shoulder near the top, near the bony bump. I was initially looking for general joint strengthening movements (for example, I do wrist pushups to condition them for the future, but I've never felt any pain in them), but I suppose with so many possibilities in the shoulder, and with minor past pains, it's inadvisable to perform generalized prehab exercises for the shoulder without tailoring it?

I'm not super flexible, but when I do the T position on the ground, I can easily get my forearm flat on the ground next to my head, and very close to the ground pointing towards my feet. I've been doing the wall extensions once or twice a week, and I can't complete the movement all the way up to shoulders in the ear with straight arms. I can get about halfway. I don't think I'm excessively tight.