shoulder problems

Hello,

I am having some problems with my shoulders with practically the same movement.

 I am having problems with negative hanging leg raises and windshield wipers. 

my shoulder fails before my core does.

i have had a couple of rotator cuff problems. But they have healed and I believe the muscles are well balanced, but I might be wrong. 

it is my front delt that is in pain.

what is wrong with me shoulder, is it flexibility? or strength? 

I would add in hangs on the bar in your warmup everyday.  Do the hangs and then shrug a few times up and down.  I did these and it greatly helped should stability.  That will probably help a bit.  After you can hang for a minute then do L-hangs.

You are lacking serratus anterior strength, endurance, and/or activation in the elevated scapular position. This is causing the acromion process to smash into the upper arm bone, impinging several things and causing you pain in the process.

My suggestion is to do what daniel says, but not until you can do the following three things (these can, and should, be worked concurrently):

1) master sPL PE2 with the ability to really feel the serratus anterior working the WHOLE time.

2) Get into the sPL PE2 position on the wall, and maintain the serratus anterior activity as you slide your forearms higher and higher up the wall. As they rise you may just have the hands on the wall, or you may scoot forward slightly to keep your forearms in contact with the wall. As long as you don't feel anterior shoulder pain, you are doing it correctly.  You won't be leaning very much, or pushing very hard, because that would keep you from being able to slide. As you lift your arms higher, it IS going to become more difficult to maintain the activation of this muscle. You will need to become very familiar with how it feels to use it, and you should expect that to take some time to really master.

When you get to where your face and shoulders/upper arms are also on the wall, and you are nearly in an open handstand, you have done well.

3) Coach Sommer's preferred version of wall slides. These are with back to the wall.

You need to keep the exact same serratus anterior activation as you do in the first two exercises I have described. For this reason, you may want to become more familiar with the first two before tackling this one, but this one is really the final magic maker because this is where you will learn how to extend the rest of the way up into a handstand.

For a long time I thought  that stretching was the answer to this problem, but it is not. I'm not saying that some specific stretching for the CORRECT muscles won't work, but the REAL problem is communication between the nervous system and the muscles.

What you will notice, as you get better at 2 and 3, is that you will start to feel that some muscles higher up in the shoulder (specifically subscapularis and teres major) are unwilling to lengthen more, which will make them feel tight. They are not tight, they are overactive. practicing this sequence daily or twice daily for a few minutes will rapidly improve your ability to control your shoulder girdle.

As you develop this control, you'll want to use similar serratus anterior activity in your H1 iM exercises. If you can't feel serratus anterior holding your shoulder blade in the right position, you have very little hope of making real long term progress because you will not have corrected the dysfunction that has been limiting you.

Once you've accomplished the mission of mastering these three movements I listed, you will be able to benefit HUGELY from what Daniel is suggesting because you will be able to properly control your shoulder.

Zach Armijo said:

The rope climb mobility and wall slides helped me tremendously. I had the same symptoms that you described but with more advanced movements. +1 to everything said above.

Yes, when I post in a Foundation forum I am sort of assuming that it is understood that people should still be performing their F1-4 workouts as prescribed, complete with mobility.

I am finding that as I become more familiar with my serratus, all the mobility work becomes much more potent.

Joshua Naterman said:

I am finding that as I become more familiar with my serratus, all the mobility work becomes much more potent.

Very much this, and also traps in my case.

I will try this as I have a similar problem which, Daniel and Joshua you have helped me with.  My hollow body pull ups have gotten better but I still have a hard time feeling my serratus working when my scapula are elevated.  The first time I did Pseudo Planche Pushups my serratus was very sore but since then I haven;t been able to get that same feeling.   It's like I lose activation when my shoulder is by my ear.  I have been doing overhead dumbell shrugs in my warm up which makes my hollow body pull ups and leg lifts feel more secure but I digress...I will try the routine outlined above and see how it goes.  Question:  To activate the serratus in the forarm plank what should I do aside from protract like a mofo?  Externally rotate my humerus?depress the scapula? upwardly rotate?