Routine balance question

Ok, so I have been doing a SSC for a couple months, making decent gains in strength and such. However in a multi-plane pressing movement such as erbs or bowers I get some pretty significant muscle pain on the outside edge of my rear deltoids. So I'm wondering if my program is balanced in terms of shoulder development, here is what I do;

Monday:

general warmup, active stretching

Pseudo planche pushups around belly button area(hands out or fists) 3x10

then 1 of the following: rolling planche pushups 2x10, wall planche pushups 2x5, elevated feet planche pushups 2x10

Handstand Pushups (belly facing wall, on 3 inch blocks) 3x8

Parallel bar dips (shoulders to bars) 2x10

reverse leg lifts 3x10

human flag holds(about 65 degrees): 2x20s/side

Tuck Planche hold 4x15s finish with a tuck planche pushup

V-sit hold 3x20s

static stretching

Tuesday:

warmup

wide grip pullups: 3x10

L sit chin ups: 2x10

tuck front lever rows: 3x8

skin the cats:1x8(more warm up really)

Arms on outside of ring iron cross: 2x15s

Advanced tuck front lever hold:3x20s

flat tuck back lever hold: 2x30s

XR support: 2x30s

v-sit pull ups on rings: 1x10

hanging leg lifts: (raise to V hold for 3s, lower to L hold for 5s, back to V, lower) 3x8

Windshield wipers: 2x8

Static stretching

Wednesday off

Thursday:same as Monday

Friday:same as Tuesday

Saturday:Off

Sunday:Should be off, but I normally end up doing some OAC negatives.

So, what do you all think? Too much vertical pushing or pulling?

If your back is weak you need to drop all your pressing work for a bit, and do all scapular retraction, rowing, etc. type work.

I would not suggest doing push/pull days like that. It's inefficient.

WOW, your pushing is way more dominant in your schedule than your pulling. No wonder you're having pain! You should definitely be working on your pulling like Brain said. I don't know that you need to stop working pushes, but you should seriously just do enough to maintain what you have, and focus most of your energy on pulling strength and scapular/rotator work. You're just going to make things get so bad that you really will have to take a long break if you don't balance your body now, and you'll end up having to do the same thing anyways in the end, so you'll just waste a bunch of time if you don't switch gears and get your pulls to the level your presses are at.

braindx said:

If your back is weak you need to drop all your pressing work for a bit, and do all scapular retraction, rowing, etc. type work.

I would not suggest doing push/pull days like that. It's inefficient.

Should I do some kind of vertical/horizontal split then? Push/pull is what I'm used to from lifting.

I've been doing the shoulder mobility circuit thats posted somewhere in this forum for a week or two and it's already taken the sharpness away from the pain. I do lots of shoulder dislocates with bands (3x10 every day, about 4 inches wider than my shoulders), but I've been doing that for years.

slizzardman said:

WOW, your pushing is way more dominant in your schedule than your pulling. No wonder you're having pain! You should definitely be working on your pulling like Brain said. I don't know that you need to stop working pushes, but you should seriously just do enough to maintain what you have, and focus most of your energy on pulling strength and scapular/rotator work. You're just going to make things get so bad that you really will have to take a long break if you don't balance your body now, and you'll end up having to do the same thing anyways in the end, so you'll just waste a bunch of time if you don't switch gears and get your pulls to the level your presses are at.

What kind of pulling should I add? Some more horizontal rowing type motion I would guess, what would be another exercise to add besides just more sets of lever rows, or elevated feet rows(or barbell rows of some type)?

If your pain is bad I would go with some sort of 3:1 or so pulling to pushing exercises.

Yes, horizontal pulling for at least 2 of them.

Specific work for the external rotators, posterior delts and scap retrators may be needed on top of that along with stretching.

Here's a general list I put together:

Upper body posture, shoulder imbalance pain

Best thing you can do is focus on posture. Hold your shoulders back, retract the scapulas, chest up and out, chin tucked back. Do this all the time. Yes, you will be sore but your body will adapt correctly within a week most of the time.

1. Drop all pressing movements

2. Do lots of horizontal pulling (rowing.... except NOT upright rows)

3. Strengthen ONLY your external rotators... ignore internal rotators

4. foam roll thoracic spine

5. Ice after any exercise/swelling

6. Band dislocates & wall slides (youtube these)

7. Lots of massage/tennis balling/etc. from the scapulae to the anterior shoulders.

8. Stretch chest and lats. A LOT. Use a basketball to roll out your chest, especially the pec minor as well. If you can't get it well use your hands to massage.

9. Fish oil for anti-inflammatory, joint supps if you need any (sections 4&5 describe these here):

http://www.eatmoveimprove.com/2009/08/on-tendonitis/

9. Do nerve glides wfs

http://www.handhealthresources.com/Solutions%20Pages/Exercises.htm

10. Deep tissue massage to everything in your upper body. And by everything I mean EVERYTHING. Down into the forearms as well.

11. Correct your posture!!!!!!!

Yewkis, reverse yewkis for pulls. You should definitely throw in some type of either band or cable rows with a close grip or leaning rows with close rings to work on your scapular retractors more. Chest-supported Incline bench dumbbell rows would be way better than the barbell rows for you, honestly. Just lean forward onto a bench inclined 20-45 degrees with your chin above the top of the bench so that your back stays straight, and row the dumbbells. This is great because you are forced to use the scapular retractors. It's one of the few "isolation" movements that I think is worth anything athletically speaking. A little trap work, like inverted curls and/or shrugs will help also.

Pay attention to brain's list, I just gave some exercises but he's got a really good list that covers a lot of pre-hab and re-hab angles. Those are just as important in the long run, and more important in the short run.

Ok, so I cut back a bit on pushing, added a couple more horizontal pulling sets and am working on this posture thing. So a couple more questions;

1.)You guys said push/pull is inefficent, should I switch to like a horizontal/vertical/multiplane split?

2.)I have hyper extending elbows, do I set into them on all static positions(cross, levers, planche, etc...) with no bicep tension, or do I just control how much I let them extend?

I think that what that poster meant was that having separate days for pure pushing and pure pulling is inefficient, which is pretty close to what you had, but I don't know. I personally get great results by having a primary focus on certain muscle groups. For example, dips and HSPU are very similar, they both mainly rely on the deltoids and the triceps. Sure, the chest is used some, but not that much percentile-wise. I get most of my chest work on a different day, when I focus more on the PPP. I'm finding that by rotating these combinations each week or at most every other week I get better progress. There is almost always some sort of pressing as well as pulls.

I'm focusing on 3 of the statics right now, so I do those 3x per week. FL, planche, and L-sit. I use those as my warm ups.

Like you, I'm curious about what brain meant.

Lavastine said:

Ok, so I cut back a bit on pushing, added a couple more horizontal pulling sets and am working on this posture thing. So a couple more questions;

1.)You guys said push/pull is inefficent, should I switch to like a horizontal/vertical/multiplane split?

2.)I have hyper extending elbows, do I set into them on all static positions(cross, levers, planche, etc...) with no bicep tension, or do I just control how much I let them extend?

1. If you're at a lower level of strength (pretty much defined as not working any B-level skills for most people) then it's almost universally better to be working full body stuff

2. I would control them to 180 degrees but figure out how to tense them so they don't go past. Too much hyperextension, especially if your body is pressing to get more is not good.

braindx said:

Lavastine said:

Ok, so I cut back a bit on pushing, added a couple more horizontal pulling sets and am working on this posture thing. So a couple more questions;

1.)You guys said push/pull is inefficent, should I switch to like a horizontal/vertical/multiplane split?

2.)I have hyper extending elbows, do I set into them on all static positions(cross, levers, planche, etc...) with no bicep tension, or do I just control how much I let them extend?

1. If you're at a lower level of strength (pretty much defined as not working any B-level skills for most people) then it's almost universally better to be working full body stuff

2. I would control them to 180 degrees but figure out how to tense them so they don't go past. Too much hyperextension, especially if your body is pressing to get more is not good.

Ok so for 1.) How about;

1.) psuedo planche puhsups(or one of the following; wall planche pushups, rolling planche pushups, fitness ball planche pushups) 3x10,

2.) Handstand pushups(or dips, alternating) 3x8,

3.)Wide grip L-pullups(or vertical pullups/curls) 3x8,

4.) L-chin ups 2x10,

5.) Elevated foot rows 3x10 and tuck front lever rows 3x6(both since I need more rear delt strength).

6.)Some kind of leg work( pistols 3x10, weighted squats 3x5, lunges, etc)

Plus all the statics (cross, planche, front lever, back lever, human flag) and 1 pushing core exercise(manna, v-sit, straddle l sit) and 1 pulling core exercise(Hanging leg lifts, hanging v and l holds, hanging windshield wipers) each workout day? Too much volume?

and for 2.) Your saying just try to get them to what most people would consider straight and not use the hyper extension?

And a new question: Is it safe to roll my shoulders around in socket in a german hang(arms behind me back lever like, to neutral hang position by pressing my arms away from my body)?

1. That's still a lot of volume.

I would add your statics then maybe 1 or 2 of each push pull. YOu don't need A LOT of volume to progress -- you need quality work.

2. For now at least until you build enough biceps mass to handle it

3. Sure, if it doesn't hurt and you maintain tension

Ok, so do you mean do statics plus 3 sets of 1 pushing and 1 pulling exercise. For example tuck rows and pseudo planche pushups and statics and thats it, and then following day do dips and inverted pullups and statics?

Lavastine said:

Ok, so do you mean do statics plus 3 sets of 1 pushing and 1 pulling exercise. For example tuck rows and pseudo planche pushups and statics and thats it, and then following day do dips and inverted pullups and statics?

Sure that works.

You don't need insane amounts of exercises to progress, especially as a newer trainee...