Active or "packed" shoulders?

[Rain]

OK, this is really a more general shoulder question that I would like to hear what the gymnastics community has to say about.

In my training I incorporate a lot of different stuff; gymnastics, olympic lifting, kettlebells etc. One thing that that there seems to be some confusion about is the position of the shoulder a lockout in overhead presses; some (Mark Rippetoe, for instance) recommend shrugging forcefully upwards at lockout, and some (Pavel, Gray Cook) recommends "packing" the shoulder (tensing the lats and kind of "sucking" the shoulder into it's socket - no shrugging). I seem to remember that I, in a gymnastics/handstand context, have heard recommendations for the shrugging version, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I'd appreciate your points of view on this. If this issue has been explored elsewhere, I apologize - but I couldn't find it when searching the forum.

Best regards,

/ R

[braindx]

All moves in gymnastics require active shoulders e.g. protracted scapulas. Whether this is in elevated or depressed position depends on the technique of the skill you're working on. Planche and most rings transitions work for example requires protracted. Most support work like L-sits, RTO supports, etc. will be depressed and protracted.

Handstands by virtue of elevating the scapulas maximally tend to be about in the middle of protraction and retraction unless your hands are very close together. You want them approximately shoulder width for most stuff anyway.

This is why a lot of gymnastics, without proper scapular retraction work (horizontal pulling and external rotators work) will tend to have very strong caveman posture. Left alone, this almost always leads to muscle and strength imbalances at the shoulder and high potential for injury.

Packed -- as in retracted scapulas -- is more important for stability in weighted exercises such as bench press, turkish getups, Oly/OHS, etc. Elevated or depressed, again, depends on the type of technique.

In oly you tend to see a lot less of the caveman posture problems because retracted is required for a lot of the overhead positions.

Regardless, get strong at both. For gymnastics, most of the time you will be protracted and elevated/depressed.

[Blairbob]

Get the shoulders up in the ears like an overhead press.