Shoulder Rehab Exercise Video

Hey guys

I put together a compilation of most of the exercises that I'm doing for shoulder rehab/stability. I've made a thread on my issues in the past, located here

viewtopic.php?f=17&t=3838

I'll sum up my issues- About 6 months ago I went to an orthopedist, complaining of frequent, exercise induced dull pain in my mind back, and occasional, more severe pain around my shoulders. She said I have scoliosis, and also a muscular imbalance which has caused winging scapulae (especially on my right side). I did two courses of physical therapy (one month each), which helped in some ways, but certainly didn't get rid of my problems.

Over the past few months, I've been refining and modifying the physical therapy exercises, including some stuff from Ido's routine and Slizzardman's band video. The video is below- feel free to scrutinize my form (and sorry for the bad camera angles). I am not as fluid I would like on some of these exercises

Also, I recently got a pain in my left shoulder upon reaching behind my back or high above my head, which Mr. Brady told me was probably impingement. I'm not completely sure whats going on, since in the past week I've had no sharp pain, but rather soreness where my bi's and tri's meet my shoulder on the outside of my arm.

But, forgetting my left shoulder, I really want to fix the problem which prompted me to go to physical therapy in the first place. Whenever I do pushups, bear weight in front of my body, or certain other exercises like curls and shoulder presses with cables, I get a dull pain in the middle of my back under the scapulae, that lasts for around 1 minute, and is intensified by exhaling completely. It gets better and worse, depending on how warm and supple my back is

Braindx said in the other thread that he thinks its my serratus posterior superior- I don't know anything about treating this, but google found me this link, which seems to describe the 'symptom' and says it can be caused from scoliosis when the thorax presses against the scapula

http://www.massagetoday.com/mpacms/mt/a ... p?id=14049

Anyway, sorry for throwing so much information/links at you guys. I really want to resolve this problem- so please take a look at the video and tell me what I'm doing right or wrong, and what to continue doing. Also, if its of relevance, heres a workout log I keep on another forum. Thanks

http://bodyweightculture.com/forum/show ... hp?t=15828

Also, heres a list of the exercise names at the bottom in the video

1. Shrugs

2. "pinches"

3. "touchdowns"

4. rows

5. prone cobra

6. push ups

7. pullovers

8. dumbbell scapular protraction

9. foam roller thoracic extension

10. external rotations

11. From Idos routine (band circles, various positions)

12. dislocations

13. front chest pull, various angles

14. one arm band extensions (made up name?)

15. back press

16. archer's pull

Sir you have neither scoliosis nor winging to any significant degree that i can see. So there's the good news. I'm not saying you don't have a pain on the side of your shoulder (typical of impingement/rotator cuff issues) or upper back.

Your upper back seems to be pretty stiff though and working on that could help with the shoulder blade pain. For some reason i'm also thinking lever work may help.

The biggest thing that jumped out at me in watching the video is lack of shoulder stabilization and packing. Watch how your shoulder blades move around while doing the Shoulder JOINT ROM and Shoulder BLADE stabilization series. You need to fix the blades in place and think about packing your shoulders so the head of the humerus moves neatly on the glenoid fossa. Esp when you have impingement this is the crux of the exercise, to teach the rotator cuff to always keep the shoulder centered in socket!

Also note how your elbow is all over the map on the external rotations don't let it move and don't move your shoulder blade, pull the band from your back armpit not your delt and middle upper-back otherwise it loses it effect.

In your pushups, think of pulling your elbows to your side from your armpit to your hips. For your issues get your elbow-in pushup sorted out before going wide. There is some winging going on there (which is very typical when the serratus anterior is weak, not a clinical problem) I'd have you use a push up board and tell you to 'break the board while doing the push ups to activate your distal shoulder muscles. Right now the medial muscles are doing all the work and i've seen many cases where this leads to the same pains you are having.

Honestly you might even do chair push ups so you can can do them without pain and learn to co-activate the distal shoulder muscles (thoseon the side part of the body, eg lats, serratus anterior, teres major). Even as a warm up that can help.

We have pretty similar body type and i've had the same issues, this is some of what worked for me.

Great to hear I don't have a lot of winging or scoliosis! I don't know if my scoliosis has improved, but I've noticed I wing much less now

When you say I should do "lever work"- do you mean front lever, or dragon flag, or what?

I've done a little research on packing but don't really understand how to do it. My left shoulder is a little irritated today, so I should probably rest a few days before trying this stuff

From what I understand, packing is using the lats and back muscles to keep the scapula in place while the rotator cuff acts. Does this mean when I lift overhead (like at the beginning of the video), my scapulae shouldnt elevate while they rotate?

When I do Ido's stabilization routine, I have a hard time keeping my shoulder from moving up and down. My dislocations also look a little funky- on the way up, I rotate 3/4 of the way, but can't quite finish the rotation without breaking the pattern

So, is there some magical exercise or demonstration to teach me how to pack correctly?

As far as push ups are concerned, I have a long way to go. I did some on an incline, which went well. Right now, doing hip pushups with elbows in just makes the problem worse, maybe because I'm pressing more weight. I've almost never done vertical pressing, but pike push ups cause little or no pain, and holding the down dog position, unlike the push up position, feels good on my back

Thanks for all your help, Mr. Brady. Theres just one more thing I'm wondering- if I can't resolve the dull pain, should I just work through it? The idea of causing damage to my body is what bothers me, not the pain, and I've avoided pushups, curling, and more for months because of it

Some further tips.

All ur band stuff looks way too quick at the minute, you can do stuff with bands quickly but only when ur shoulder is more stable, in ur case I think u'd better off doing the excercies (eg ur external rotation) slower with better for and with some isometric holds of upto 10 seconds during the end range. Focus on the technique a lot more quality over quantity, this is muscle retraining what ur trying to do.

I'd add a few closed chain excercises as well. I do shoulder shrugs in HS and also on dip bars. With these don't bend ur elbows just get the movement through ur shoulder girdle. Though u may want to film these as well because you don't stabilize well in the pushup at all.

Definitel looks like u don't have scoliosis I don't know who told u that, I mean noone has a completely straight spine but clinical scoliosis is much more pronounced. As for serratus posterior superior, I would doubt this very much will be a problem for u. It's a tiny muscle that maybe has a propioreceptive role but really doesn't do much. And considering how deep it is noone could ever palpate and know if there's a problem with it and it would be so rare i wouldn't worry about it.

Great to hear I don't have a lot of winging or scoliosis! I don't know if my scoliosis has improved, but I've noticed I wing much less now

When you say I should do "lever work"- do you mean front lever, or dragon flag, or what?

All of the above Body Lever (tucked?) in particular.

I've done a little research on packing but don't really understand how to do it. My left shoulder is a little irritated today, so I should probably rest a few days before trying this stuff

From what I understand, packing is using the lats and back muscles to keep the scapula in place while the rotator cuff acts. Does this mean when I lift overhead (like at the beginning of the video), my scapulae shouldnt elevate while they rotate?

When I do Ido's stabilization routine, I have a hard time keeping my shoulder from moving up and down. My dislocations also look a little funky- on the way up, I rotate 3/4 of the way, but can't quite finish the rotation without breaking the pattern

So, is there some magical exercise or demonstration to teach me how to pack correctly?

There's no such thing as magic!

There is shoulder blade packing, pulling it doan and firming it to the body and there is shoulder joint packing. Using the lat and teres major to keep the head of the humerus from riding up (this is what causes impingement)

Firm the muscles that run along the back part of your side until you can feel that pulling your arm down a little bit. Now do this in your shoulder exercises.

If you have access to Pavel's Enter the Kettlebell he actually is very good at getting the idea across.

Thanks for all your help, Mr. Brady. Theres just one more thing I'm wondering- if I can't resolve the dull pain, should I just work through it? The idea of causing damage to my body is what bothers me, not the pain, and I've avoided pushups, curling, and more for months because of it

Pushing through pain is rarely a good idea. If your not sure don't do it.

However working the pain out rather than avoiding it altogether is also important. You have to scale your work to an appropriate level so you can correctly execute the movement. You can unload the push up totally by doing it just standing and feeling how to actively pull your arms in to your sides and push them out, then slightly load by doing that same thing at a wall, then a chair, then with a push up board, then the floor.

Down dog is a good thing for everyone and it will help tspine mobility and active shoulder flexibility. The pike push up is a totally different movement, it won't help your regular push ups much. Not that its wrong for you to do, it just won't do anything for your pushups.

EDIT: I just saw Demus' comments and he's spot on!

Thanks for the tips, Demus. Right now, I don't do handstands or dips. I'm not sure if I'm able to do a correct handstand, and I actually hurt myself doing dips half a year ago (which was the immediate cause for me to see an orthropedist which started this whole thing), so I've been a little afraid to start doing them again. Maybe I'll do shrugs in a pike or overhead using bands as resistance?

Also, I looked at enter the kettlebell today. The descriptions weren't lengthy, but he gave two exercises to practice packing. The first is simply to lower the shoulders into your body while hanging on a pull up bar. The second is an isometric press against a doorframe/ceiling, first trying to push up, and then packing the shoulder and imagining pushing your feet down.

I find, actually, that this is a lot easier to do with arms overhead than extended in front of you.

Mr. Brady mentioned theres a physiological reason for that In an older thread, and also told me to visualize squeezing a newspaper between my arm and body. That tenses the muscles in the side of my back and seems to keep my scapula locked in place

I got a pretty good idea of what to do from these exercises- Ill probably post a video in the future to see if I've learned correctly. I guess I'll use this thread for any future videos. Just to mention, also, I'm heading off to college in two weeks! I plan on exercising a lot, since I'll be leaving TV and videogames at home.

MCem222 said:

Also, I looked at enter the kettlebell today. The descriptions weren't lengthy, but he gave two exercises to practice packing. The first is simply to lower the shoulders into your body while hanging on a pull up bar. The second is an isometric press against a doorframe/ceiling, first trying to push up, and then packing the shoulder and imagining pushing your feet down.

Pavel has a way of teaching allot without needing to use a lot of words. Look at how he moves.

BTW Stuart McGill used him as a test subject and said he had the strongest core of any of the athletes he'd ever worked with.

Good luck with this and with your college!

I have a question but I didn't want to start a new topic, so I'll mention it here

At the advice of Mr. Brady, I've started doing yoga. I don't have any set routines down, and yesterday was doing some poses (e.g. bow, serpent, up and down dog).

Anyway, yesterday might or might not be relevant. Today, I was doing sun salutation before warming up, and during the head to knee pose one of my abs went into spasm. It sort of looked like the picture in this link

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Repetitive-S ... xtreme.htm

Needless to say, it was painful. This has happened two other times during the past year, once when I was doing the exact same stretch. All three times in the same spot (upper left abdomen). The first time I was shocked, because it looked like the muscle slipped over my ribcage, and it took a good minute before it started to subside. This time I could relax and get it down quicker. So, my question is, what the hell happened, and is it something I have to worry about?

MCem!!!!! WOW, that's something i've never seen before and it looks painful. You are an interesting case!

Any muscle can cramp it can be a sign of overstrain and / or general weakness, but this isn't something we want to have to go through multiple times each year!

Do you ever have other spasms? If so there may be a dietary link. Lack of Magnesium, Calcium or salt or Potassium can contribute to this.

As for the way you are doing the 'head to knee' you must be over using your abs. If you can submit a video again as long as you don't make that spasm happen.

In general in the forward bend you want to think of a long front body, so let your collar bones reach for the toes, rather than using our abs to force your head to the knees. In other words head to knee it the wrong name, its crown of the head to toe nails pose.

Its interesting, actually. I had occasional spasms in my legs around the time I had my first spasm in my abdominals. The first time it happened, I had no idea what to do. It was terrifying, because it actually felt like something slipped out of place and would not go back in. The second time happened months later, and I was actually in school right near the nurses office. I showed her, and she was baffled. That was months ago, so when I say three times in the span of a year, I mean a literal year

My diet is pretty sound. Three days ago I decided to stop drinking fruit juice and things with added sugar, so maybe that made me susceptible to spasm.

Anyway, I'm uploading a video. Sorry for the terrible camera angles- I did this in a hurry. I also added backbending at the end. I am not able to do a full gymnastic bridge yet, so I showed a bridge with bent limbs, a bridge on my neck, and a yoga pose.

I haven't been working on flexibility for long (only really started a few weeks ago). For the head to knee, do you mean to say that I should keep my back straight and no compress my abs, so I'm just pivoting at the hips (and ideally my collar bone would go down to the toes)? In the video, I first touched my toes by pivoting at the hips, then went a little further by bending my back and compressing my midsection. And for bridges, do you have any tips/precautions on working to a full bridge?

I might upload another video later with shoulder packing- I've been working on it. Until then, I'm really busy packing for college

Video link:

A0ONHZmsFec

I'd look into the nutritional angle, skipping juice for a couple of days has nothing to do with it. Do some research on muscle cramps find foods that have the minerals suggested and perhaps even a good supplement. I'm sure are other forum members who can advise you better on this, but first just get some general info. This isn't 'normal'

On the forward bend for example, yes i see you are using your abs but its not that extreme so the cramping is worrisome.

I can't really get into the back bends now with out writing a book so i'll skip that, other than warning it shouldn't hurt your lower back.

With the standing forward bends. For a while do them with your hands on the couch behind you, and focus on lengthening your belly, and turning your hips which in turn will flatten your back. Abs should lengthen more in your case.

MCem222 said:

I had occasional spasms in my legs around the time I had my first spasm in my abdominals.

Did the leg spasm use to happen at very beggining of your workouts or later when you were already warmed up and had worked out for a bit?

And using this occasion, hello everybody.

http://www.acu-cell.com/dis-mus.html

this page can be rather confusing because there are so many possible causes but it might be worth a read

Hi Piotro (and welcome!). The leg spasms happened so long ago, but I think they did not happen while I was working out

Thanks for the link, Razz. It is sort of confusing. For the time being, I'm going to stall investigating nutrition, and do it only if I cramp again. I have some special dietary considerations, so I don't want to make things more complicated

Mr. Brady, I am always confused how and when to turn my hips to flatten my back- I guess I should arch my back as if in the cow pose, to lengthen my abs. If you ever feel like writing that book on back bending, I'll be glad to read it