Introduction

[Rob Eckersley]

Hi, I've frequented this forum quite a few times in the past and thought I'd finally join up and ask a few questions.

Background:

My training history follows a similar path to many others I imagine. I started off being interested in team sports, then got into lifting weights for vanity, then progressed to pursuing powerlifting and eventually ended up with shoulder and knee injuries and lost a lot of drive and interest. After relatively ineffective physio I took things into my own hands and through approx. 3 years of trial and error, I have managed to make a lot of improvements in regards to my shoulder and knee health and I'm back in the gym. I'm no longer really pursuing bodybuilding or powerlifting goals, but rather just enjoying the activity and trying to look and feel good.

I'm currently doing mobility and stretching every other morning, with a few rotator cuff and lower trap exercises on top. I'm going to the gym with my partner 3-4 times a week after work, doing an Upper/Lower split workout, with very basic exercises like Dips, Rows, Presses, Leg Raises, Curls, Squats and Romanian Deads. I think the biggest improvements to my shoulder health has been completely ditching bench presses of any sort, incorporating dead hangs (got that from reading Ido Portal's stuff), wall handstands, dislocates (got that from here) and lots of lower trap stuff. Like I said, my shoulders feel much improved and I have a positive feeling towards my training.

Onto the questions:

- my shoulders feel really tight every morning when I wake up and when I pull my arm across my body, my shoulders 'pop' aka joint cavitation. It isn't painful, however almost without fail it happens every morning. Do you think this is bad? What would be causing it? Can I do anything to prevent it?

- I would really like to continue progressing my hanging and wall handstands. Currently I am hanging at least 2 times a week in a training situation, but often more outside of training. I don't have any rigid routine for the hanging, I just do it before my workout and utilise completely dead hangs, active hangs, 1 arm hangs, flexed hangs etc. I can achieve 1m40s+ consistently and on some days I can achieve 2mins for the 2 arm hangs.

If you were to try and improve your hangs and achieve a goal of a 5min 2 arm hang and 1min 1 arm hang, how would you go about doing so? Is there anything I should avoid when it comes to hanging in order to further improve shoulder health? Ido portal has said he focuses on active hangs and throws in some dead hangs due to his particular mobile, but damaged shoulders, so I have been taking the same approach.

How would you program wall handstands to build absolutely bomb proof shoulders?

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

Rob

 

 

[Everett Carroll]

Handstand 1 will provide programming for training handstands and it has tons of shoulder mobilities to make them bulletproof. 

As for your shoulder pain, I recommend trying to find an effective physio. They are out there but sometimes hard to come accross. Most of us on here are not qualified to diagnose people in person, let alone over a forum. Remember that lifting is going to continue to get you tight and you likely need more structured mobility like that in the Foundations and Handstand courses.

Hanging is great (I am a rock climber) and the Rope Climb progressions build up to hanging progressively so Foundations 1 is highly recommended. I train in a rock gym so boulder problems and a long, full dead hang are part of my warmup.