Important Pull-up Question

Sorry about making 2 threads one after the other, I thought this would be a completely different question.

About the hanging position when doing pull-ups/chin-ups. In Paul Wade's CC, he suggest keeping the shoulders "tight" in the hanging position to protect them, this is done by contracting the lats and pulling the shoulders down. But what about in Gymnastics? Do you guys start pull-ups with a complete dead hang with the shoulders next to your ears (just completely hanging there without pulling your shoulders down)? Will starting pull-ups from a completely relaxed dead hang be dangerous for the shoulders?

** Another thing I'd like to mention, Paul Wade in CC also says to keep a slight "kink" in the elbows at the top portion of a push-up. He says this will prevent the nerves in the elbow from pinching. What do you guys think about this? Should you completely lock out your arms each rep for push-ups (straight arm)? **

**Edit: I forgot, I had another inquiry about Handstands. Should you shrug your shoulders at the top of the handstand when doing headstand/handstand push-ups? **

I no longer follow CC, I am putting all my efforts into BtGB, however being a CC follower in the past, I have picked up some habits and I am wondering if they are correct. I appreciate answers and thanks in advance.

In my experience keeping the shoulders tight and protected during pullups is incredibly important, especially when you get into one-armed pullups or are using heavy weights in the 1-3 rep range. I was having serious shoulder problems about half a year ago, and through experimentation realized that it was caused by my relaxed form at the beginning of pullups. Proper body tension was essential in my case, and I haven't had a single shoulder issue since I started focusing on that.

I prefer to go full ROM, locking out on pushing exercises.

Pulling out of "0" when it comes to pullups is actually the reason many people don't release all that tension at the bottom. Because it's more difficult. Breaking the first part of that movement, let's say the first 25% is where a lot of the difficult rests in.

Gymnasts need to be strong at that ROM at the beginning and end of ROM.

In a HS you want to shrug your shoulders up to your ears preferably touching your ears. This is pushing out all the way if you have the flexibility for it. Some gymnasts and enthusiasts do not have that flexibility however. In a support you want to make your neck as long as possible.

You definitely want to go all the way down to straight arms and elevated scapula. Not all the way elevated, you aren't trying to relax anything, just move to the best dead hang you can under control.

As far as the elbows, nerves and pushing exercises go it is technically possible for a nerve to get pinched in the elbow but that almost never happens. As long as you are coming up to very nearly locked out you should be ok, but if you are trying to do things like PPP and get the full benefits you will need to go all the way to the true straight arm position.

Thanks for the responses guys, so as far as I know now:

-For push-ups, it's okay to lock out the arms, I've always done this and it doesn't seem to be a problem

-For pull-ups, go full range of motion but still keep the shoulders "tight" to protect them.

-For Handstand, shrug your shoulders as much as possible to keep tension.

Am I right?

i too prefer full rom pullups, always caring about the position and action in my shoulders...

martinponce said:

i too prefer full rom pullups, always caring about the position and action in my shoulders...

Definitely, full range of motion all the way, but keeping the shoulders tight to protect them

CalisthenicGod said:

-For Handstand, shrug your shoulders as much as possible to keep tension.

Am I right?

It's funny. I was reading a couple of posts from Ido just last night, and he wasn't a fan of this. He was talking about how gymnast use HSs as a transitional movement, therefore they would never stay in the HS (on rings lets say) for more than 5s. Some schools of thoughts encourage an neither elevated, nor depressed shoulder. Then again, Yuval recommends a completely depressed shoulder while in HSs. He finishes by using our legs as an analogy. We stand on them all day long, and therefore we use minimal effort to be in that position. Why tense more and put more effort for the same job?

My guess is that until we're proficient enough to practice HSs as a skill because the strength gains have all been acquired, at that point we no longer train HSs as though we were training them as a transitional movement. I'm going to assume this point was brought up before in other threads. Apologies if this was already discussed and confirmed or debunked.

These are different goals. You want to have active shoulders because we are using handstands to strengthen that aspect of the shoulder capsule. If you were trying to hold a handstand forever then you have to remove as much muscular effort as possible without losing the stability of the position, and that is altogether different.

Clear and to the point. Makes sense Slizz.

Poliquin (Yes, I just made the ultimate name drop) says drop as far as you can with elevated scapula on each pull chin, depress the scapula on the way up.

I think if an elevated scapula hang is problematic, avoiding it is the best strategy to keep it problematic, therefore when 'sh!t happens' and you find yourself down there with one arm or a big ass weight having not gotten used to it you will find yourself in deep shit.

Hmm Animal that's a good point.

Now I'm really wondering, if doing pull-ups from a complete dead hang each set with your shoulders almost level with your ears and scapula elevated versus doing pull-ups with your scapula slightly depressed at the bottom (and pulling your shoulders down) as advised by Paul Wade in CC is ideal. I personally go down as far as possible whilst keeping my shoulders slightly depressed (almost unnoticeable).

Even Jim from BeastSkills talks about it Here.

What are your thoughts guys?

I drop all the way as far as possible down. But I make sure to fully retract and depress prior to my ascent.

CalisthenicGod said:

Hmm Animal that's a good point.

Now I'm really wondering, if doing pull-ups from a complete dead hang each set with your shoulders almost level with your ears and scapula elevated versus doing pull-ups with your scapula slightly depressed at the bottom (and pulling your shoulders down) as advised by Paul Wade in CC is ideal. I personally go down as far as possible whilst keeping my shoulders slightly depressed (almost unnoticeable).

Even Jim from BeastSkills talks about it Here.

What are your thoughts guys?

Well, with the one-arm chin that Jim's talking about, I don't have that kind of strength, so I can't comment. But I do know that with your scapula elevated at the bottom, with a full dead hang, YES, there is a risk of injury *if* your scapula is weak. And that's the point. The only way you're going to strengthen it is by going through full ROM.

People say the same thing about straight arm work. "Never straighten your arm all the way, the leverage on the joint can make you prone to injury". Well, yes. That's why you don't start your straight arm training by holding palm-down back levers. But the solution to that isn't to avoid the problem, it's to go at it using the appropriate level of intensity, being careful not to overdo it.

I agree with what Jim says. If you haven't done any scapula strengthening, then holding your entire bodyweight on one arm is probably not a good idea. But I don't think that applies for those of us wanting to move up the gymnastic progressions.

Jman, so it's alright going down fully with elevated scapula? Granted that you build up the scapula itself akin to building up the joints for straight arm work?

One way you can bridge the gap is to do hanging shrugs.

Do a full deadhang, letting the scapula come up to the ears and arms fully internally rotate., keep the arms pretty straight, depress your scapula and simultaneously externally rotate your arms slightly until the shoulder joint feels engaged.

(Note: with arms overhead, to externally rotate means to turn the crotch of the elbow outward)

As you get better let your chest roll up so its facing the bar.

This will condition you out of the bottom of the pull up, and is a wonderful Thoracic Spine opener as well.

Thanks for the suggestion Mr.Brady, I will use that to warm-up before doing my pull-ups.

So is "keeping the shoulders tight" really just a myth akin to "never locking your arms" in push-ups?

A better way of thinking is that they are different ways of working, and both have their place depending on what you want to do.

If you only keep the shoulders tight you will loose a lot of important ROM that will come in handy for many other skills and movements as well as integrity of the rotator cuff.

Mr Brady said:

One way you can bridge the gap is to do hanging shrugs.

Do a full deadhang, keep the arms pretty straight, depress your scapula and simultaneously externally rotate your arms.

(Note: with arms overhead, to externally rotate means to turn your arms inward, as if you were closing your armpits)

So confused by this. External rotating your arms while overhead is like turning your shoulders towards the front rather than the back? If that's true then what I've been queuing prior to every pullup (weighted or non) has been the complete opposite.

***EDIT: I just thought of all the Kelly Starret videos I've watched and it now makes perfect sense. I think what confused me was the pullup/chinup. I'm assuming you still externally rotate in pull-ups right?

Its confusing, the terms are derived from anatomical position, which is basically hands at the sides. So if you externally rotate there and then lift your arms and do the same thing, you will see that your arms now rotate inwards.

Yes, you do externally rotate on pullups.

That's not entirely correct. You can't externally rotate during a pull up without severely raising your risk of injury. What you CAN do and should do is learn how to retract and depress the scapulae during internal rotation when performing pull ups.. We aren't talking about severe internal rotation here, but there is some. Why? Lats are internal rotators. End of story, really. If you think your external rotators can overpower your lats you are crazy. When you try you tend to see dislocations.

Shoulder rotation should happen independently of scapular movement. They are in no way tied together, this is referred to as glenohumeral separation in many things I have read. This term simply means that movement of the glenohumeral joint (upper arm in the shoulder socket) should be able to be controlled completely independently from scapulothoracic movement (shoulder blade sliding around on the rib cage, this is protraction retraction etc).

You should have no problem moving your arm in the socket without your shoulderblade moving. If you can't do this, you have poor glenohumeral separation and you are at an increased risk of injury. This is something I have been correcting in my right shoulder for a while now and it's getting pretty good.

External rotation is just rotation away from the midline. That's one of the things that doesn't change from anatomical position. If the thumb is moving towards the midline due to upper arm rotating in the shoulder socket it's shoulder internal rotation. I know you know what you mean, but using the right words in this case is really important. If people think they should externally rotate in a pull up they are going to start hurting themselves!

Summation: When moving from the bottom of the pull up to the top there will be SOME internal rotation at the shoulders. Obviously the opposite will occur on the way down. You don't need to concentrate on this too much, it happens automatically. What you MAY need to concentrate on is using the LATS to do this and keeping the scapula from protracting(depending on what kind of pull up you want to do) or pulling away from the ribcage(this is for every pull up) at the same time.

Also: when talking about keeping the shoulders tight, use common sense guys! You don't have to flex as hard as you can, but if you COMPLETELY relax you will dislocate your shoulder. There's always some tension, it's an automatic reflex. You CAN learn to shut that off but that would be stupid. You can fully elevate the scaps without damaging yourself. You keep your upper arm tight in the shoulder socket, meaning that you don't let your arm start popping out of the socket(it doesn't take much to keep this from happening) and you let all the movement happen at the scaps. That's it.

slizzardman said:

That's not entirely correct. You can't externally rotate during a pull up without severely raising your risk of injury. What you CAN do and should do is learn how to retract and depress the scapulae during internal rotation when performing pull ups.. We aren't talking about severe internal rotation here, but there is some. Why? Lats are internal rotators. End of story, really. If you think your external rotators can overpower your lats you are crazy. When you try you tend to see dislocations.

Shoulder rotation should happen independently of scapular movement. They are in no way tied together, this is referred to as glenohumeral separation in many things I have read. This term simply means that movement of the glenohumeral joint (upper arm in the shoulder socket) should be able to be controlled completely independently from scapulothoracic movement (shoulder blade sliding around on the rib cage, this is protraction retraction etc).

You should have no problem moving your arm in the socket without your shoulderblade moving. If you can't do this, you have poor glenohumeral separation and you are at an increased risk of injury. This is something I have been correcting in my right shoulder for a while now and it's getting pretty good.

External rotation is just rotation away from the midline. That's one of the things that doesn't change from anatomical position. If the thumb is moving towards the midline due to upper arm rotating in the shoulder socket it's shoulder internal rotation. I know you know what you mean, but using the right words in this case is really important. If people think they should externally rotate in a pull up they are going to start hurting themselves!

Summation: When moving from the bottom of the pull up to the top there will be SOME internal rotation at the shoulders. Obviously the opposite will occur on the way down. You don't need to concentrate on this too much, it happens automatically. What you MAY need to concentrate on is using the LATS to do this and keeping the scapula from protracting(depending on what kind of pull up you want to do) or pulling away from the ribcage(this is for every pull up) at the same time.

Also: when talking about keeping the shoulders tight, use common sense guys! You don't have to flex as hard as you can, but if you COMPLETELY relax you will dislocate your shoulder. There's always some tension, it's an automatic reflex. You CAN learn to shut that off but that would be stupid. You can fully elevate the scaps without damaging yourself. You keep your upper arm tight in the shoulder socket, meaning that you don't let your arm start popping out of the socket(it doesn't take much to keep this from happening) and you let all the movement happen at the scaps. That's it.

Thanks for the amazing reply Slizzardman, haven't seen you wrote a post this long since a year ago lol. I noticed your posts are very brief these days and that's probably because you help so many people and frankly, are getting tired of it as there are a lot of repeated questions and you don't really get much back from it, but I just want to let you know that your posts help tremendously and your advice is taken considerably more than with a grain of salt (more like a truckload of salt).

I will continue to keep my shoulders "in their sockets", so Paul Wade is correct on that part right? (I know you don't like Paul Wade, and neither do I, but some of his advice is worth taking).

Also, the internal/external shoulder rotation gibberish is confusing the crap out of me, I don't have a PhD in Kinesiology and Physiology, so please enlighten me on this shoulder rotation stuff.

That's not the terminology i was taught, but honestly, i don't care if you call it chicken soup as long as people get the idea.

Yea, it's weird. If you start with pull up position, look at the shoulder rotation that occurs, and then move to anatomical position and replicate it you will see that it actually is internal rotation.

New things I've learned today:

slizzardman said:

Shoulder rotation should happen independently of scapular movement. They are in no way tied together, this is referred to as glenohumeral separation in many things I have read.

I'll look at ways to test and see if I'm deficient at separating these movements.