Scapula ROM

[Philip Papandrea]

Hi

Was wondering if anyone had any opinions on what scapular/ shoulder positions are safe to put your shoulder into? I've been trying to gain better motor control of my scaps as I can't even do scap push-ups without my shoulders riding up and I started reading about moving your scaps through all ranges of motions while hanging or in a support and so on as helping to fully control the scaps. So an example would be to do do a full passive hang and then retract and protract the scaps and then do same in an active hang and then eventual rotate through like scapular pull-ups. The thing is you always hear things like you shouldn't internally rotate the shoulders with arms overhead or in a support position, or let the shoulders shrug up and internally rotate cause it'll cause shoulder issues. But isn't this essentially what your doing during these scapular pull-ups and support rotations?Shouldn't the shoulder and scapula be able to move through all these positions pain free? I can do these movements holding onto bands or with arms down to side but in a passive hang when I retract the scaps which is internally rotating shoulders I do feel pain in right shoulder? is this not a good position or should I be trying to figure out what's wrong with shoulder that I can't do this? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks

Phil

[Mikkel Ravn]

There are a bunch of passive / active hang exercises in Foundation which would precede full bodyweight manipulation of the scapula as you suggest. There are also many protraction/retraction exercises which are done at less than bodyweight. I like the idea, and have seen some good examples of it, but there are many, many simpler progressions which could be useful to do first.

[Andrew Long]

my physio told me as you do scapular pull up your humerus should externally rotate so that it sits correctly at the joint although most people i think have weak external rotators due to over use of pecs and lats and poor posture.   he said something similar about my handstand but i think the handstand comment may be due to my specific issue with my shoulder.