Shoulder mobility/flexibility question

[Karl-Erik Karlsen]

Working the pommel horse progressions lately, I have rediscovered an insanely tight area of my body.
I've been doing reverse plank holds to open the shoulders for the mushroom and it's hellishly tight. But then the coach at the gym showed me another way to stretch for it - reverse elbow plank.

And this I cannot do at all. My elbows just slide apart and I end up flat on my back.

Anyone got any idea about accessory stretches or mobility exercises I could do to help even get into position here? Obviously something is either tighter with bent elbows, or, decreasing the lever arm makes me miss out on that extra bit of strength I need to hold the reverse plank.

Any ideas?

[Keilani Gutierrez]

from what you're describing, i'd to town on your pec minor(and associated pectoral muscles, the one to focus on here is the pec minor) with a lacrosse ball and re-test the mobility.

how's your bridge? mine is terrible, I mention this because after giving some input to pec mobility and how it affects shoulder flexion and especially extension mobility, i'd invest some time spent giving the pecs and then your armpit(i found a nasty tight spot there once and have made it a habit to check the area everytime I remember to.)

let me know how this feels for you afterwards

[Karl-Erik Karlsen]

Thanks, I'll try that one out! I have long suspected pec minor might be a source of my tight neck and shoulders. Maybe the scalenes are involved too, although it really feels chesty.

[Karl-Erik Karlsen]

I've been looking more closely at it now - and it seems I have really poor flexibility with my arm bent (that goes for both overhead extension and back down into flexion - think HS PE1>im and PE2>im with bent arms).

My elbows abduct and drift outwards in the following cases:
-backward roll
-muscle-up on rings
-standing barbell overhead press (the left arm mainly, and only slightly here)
-reverse elbow plank

They all have in common that the arm is bent at the time when the elbows drift out from the midline.
Anyone have any experience with this, like what kind of mobility/flexibility training I could do to try and get it back into shape?
I don't notice it when the arms are straight, but that could be because the effects are less visible than when the elbows are bent.
Would really really appreciate some input in the form of a stretch I could use, or a mobility drill

[Keilani Gutierrez]

the movement seems to still ring the same bells. 

 

backward roll- im not sure how to do these, so i have no comment.

 

muscle up on rings- pec minor makes my shoulders roll forward and my position gets all funky due to the mobility and the lack of strength I have to properly keep my socket where it is stable. 

 

standing barbell overhead press- i dont know. i can't even. i don't have experience with weights xD

 

reverse elbow plank- say what? this might also highlight pec mobility because in extension, the pecs internally rotate the humerus(for stability? idk, but i know it's a comfortable position to be in, albeit you dont want to exagerate the internal rotation because(in my case) it exagerates the position of my scapula[as in it will rotate it forwards too much] since the[my] pec's are so tight. 

 

I'm not sure how the synergy between Lat's, PEc's and the rotator cuff occur, because my anatomical knowledge is so brief, but i'd investigate in mobilizing these areas and also working on your rotator cuff mobility. 

 

you have options, I'm only aware of a few. it begs to mention though, you already mentioned iM1 and iM2 from H1. how do you feel when you perform these? also, how do you feel with the HBP iM's?

[Karl-Erik Karlsen]

Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines here. I'm hoping this is something that will just even itself out over the course of the foundation series - and it probably will, but the lack of mobility is hampering me at the most basic of tumbling levels. So, I'm trying to troubleshoot it now, as it has started becoming an irritating problem, and a little painful too.

The left shoulder has been very painful before, due to stupid bodybuilding type mistakes. But after I started GST, it has pretty much resolved itself and only becomes painful if I do heavy overhead pressing with a higher volume. So it has improved a whole lot.
Still, maybe there is some residual injury there or just chronic tightness of the muscles around a previous injury. So it needs to get opened up and the slowly strengthened throughout the new ROM, in my opinion. Just not sure how to actually go about increasing the ROM enough to be able to start rebuilding stability there.


Anyway:
im1 is slightly more painful on the previously injured side and the ROM feels a tiny bit different here, so I go carefully.
Im2 seems better, but my ROM on both sides is downright zombie-like, naturally.
The HBP I have only gotten to level 2 with, but the im here feels pretty good. Only some wonkiness on the left side if I go with a weight that is so heavy I have trouble doing the movement correctly. So I go lighter and that feels alright.

But I'm thinking I'm going to try both table, im1, reverse plank and some reverse plank stuff with bent arms and just go slowly over time, see if something happens. At least I haven't had any problems completing my GB workouts, thankfully.

[Keilani Gutierrez]

probably discontinuing or abbreviating tumbling until mobility quality reaches a certain peak would be a good idea to not cause any interference with what you're doing here. (thought i would feel better if you got that kind of advice from a tumbler.)

ps: hope you get well

[Karl-Erik Karlsen]

Haha, yes. I'm sure I will, when I get far enough into Foundation, but it is a long and arduous road!