A couple of questions about SE1 and SE3

For SE1 the tip says to "press the shoulders forward in front of the hands to increase the stretch on the biceps." That means to press the shoulders toward the feet, right?

In SE3 should I actively retract the shoulders or leave them relaxed? To scale, is it preferable to keep the hands touching and stay higher, or to widen them more and go lower?

-Yes, that's the direction, but for the supine extension for time you can also move your feet away from your hands, so your shoulders may not actually get much closer

- Actively retract the shoulders and externally rotate the arms

- I prefer to keep them touching or near to, and stay higher myself, provided you can get a good stretch from it. If you are quite tight you may need to stay wider at first

Thank you Jon!

Another question: in the capsule stretch, SE 13/14 I feel a bit of numbness in the forearm finger of the arm being stretched, I suppose because pressing down the shoulder impedes a bit blood circulation. Is that fine or am I overdoing it?

bump

tingling may be a sign of going a bit too hard. if it happens soon into set you should regress the stretch somewhat  

do you get the pins and needles afterwards? during?

Thanks Keilani,

I only feel it during the stretch, it goes away pretty much immediately afterwards. It settles in not immediately but fairly soon I think, next time I'll pay more attention to when it starts.

so it happens for a moment and goes away? or persists within the set? 

my question as to when it happens has more to do if its because you're simply holding for too long or if you're going too hard on the sets. like on table, one side of my shoulders is more flexible and when i go up, if i start with my hands too close i'll feel a little pinching sensation in my rear right shoulder. 

were this the issue, a wider stance during warming up and bringing the hands closer as the workout progresses would be the solution. 

question, can you replicate the results that create the tingling? if you have a set filmed, troubleshooting it can easier that way. 

I would say I start feeling about 30-40 seconds into the stretch, and by 90 seconds I have a distinct if light feeling of numbness. It dissipates pretty much immediately as I go out of the stretch.

Here are two filmed sets, the numbing is quite distinct by the end of the video

One thing I thought is that maybe I am pressing too hard the stretched shoulder, it is firmly on contact with the ground but I keep pressing it. On the other hand the other shoulder is not as pressed down as I thought.

Thanks for the advice about the table stretch too.

@Keilani Gutierrez

Hi Keilani it took me a while to record the videos but eventually I did it, do you have any further advice? Thanks!

bump!

Two thoughts,

- rather than pressing on the shoulder, thing you are rolling over.

 - try entering the stretch from your back, stretch the arm as far away from you as possible on the side and then roll onto it.

Thanks Cole, by rolling you mean e.g. in SE 13 (stretching right shoulder) to move the shoulder as if I were rolling my body towards my right side to get to a supine position? What do you mean by entering the stretch from my back?

By rolling I mean just that, think that you are trying to roll you body over onto the opposite side rather than just pushing straight down on you shoulder. Maybe another way to say it would be if your laying on your right arm, try to get weight on the left chest rather than just putting more pressure on the right.

By enter from the back I mean lay on your back, stretch your right out to the side, and then roll over on it. This can put the shoulder in a little better position for the stretch and well as being a nice stretch for the upper back, which I see is missing from your videos.

Hi Guido, I get a numbness as well, in my fingers and maybe forearm, towards the end of the stretch. It goes away very soon on the next SE. I'm expecting it, as I'm lying down on my arm cutting off it's blood supply!

I also have the same issue and it goes away once I'm out of the stretch.