Increasing Shoulder Flexibility

I have been handstand training for a while, but I have reached a plateau, not it strength, but in balance. Or so it seems.

I believe I have finally identified my problem: a lack of shoulder flexibility in the HS position.

After reading, re-reading, and re-re-reading, Coach's essay on handstand work, it seems to me that I lack the ability to push my upper chest against the wall (stomach to wall) while performing a wall-HS.

I also, struggle tremendously to not arch my back during handstands (I don't think my head position is the issue). I have searched these forums high and low and can't seem to find any specific articles addressing this topic.

So my question is ultimately: What is an appropriate technique for increasing shoulder flexibility in order to achieve a straight body position (not arched back) and perform a better handstand?

Also, if my diagnosis is wrong, please suggest an alternative to me so that I can continue to progress with my training.

Thank you in advance for your help!

~Brian

Lots and lots of shoulder dislocates in multiple grips. Lots of hanging from a bar or rings ( skin the cats ) or swinging.

Doing cat shoulder stretches ( it's over on drillsandskills.com under stretching ).

Possibly foam rolling but more than likely your shoulders aren't very flexible.

Working bridges can increase shoulder flexibility if you focus on opening shoulders instead of back. A good way to do this is to elevate the feet and focus on leaning into shoulders.

Are there any more basic things one can do to increase shoulder flexibility? I have a friend who used to do football that suffers greatly from what I've seen Coach refer to as "bench press syndrome". He's very strong, but once he gets on the rings it's all over; skin the cats are pretty much out of the question at the moment, as he can barely lift his torso 10 degrees from hanging with his legs tucked in. Any insight would be wonderfully appreciated.

Wall Extensions Essay & Video

Wall Extensions are an excellent movement for increasing mobility within the shoulder girdle. Click here for an essay, photos and video demonstration of wall extensions.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Yep, I forgot about that one as I played with it. I'm sure I saw Eric Cressey use it over on T-nation. He has a slew of articles about kyphosis, lordosis, and shoulder therapies. Check'm out.

Wow, I just tried this as i feel my shoulders are tight as well when doing my handstands.... I can't get very far at all.

This is exactly what I was looking for.

One of my shoulders is a little higher than the other, and I've been trying to find a way to correct this. I decided I would work on my flexibility and see what happens from there.

I've been doing shoulder dislocates and the back bend progressions every night for about 10 minutes. About 2 or 3 times a week I will hold the bottom of a skin the cat for 20 seconds and do back lever holds, and I'll be doing these wall extensions every day.

Is there anything else I could be doing to help my problem?

sghetti:

try bridges....

I though bridges WERE back bends?

Hand bridges are sometimes called backbends but when you state " backbend, " I, as a coach, think bending backwards into a bridge from a standing position.

Working bridges can increase shoulder flexibility if you focus on opening shoulders instead of back. A good way to do this is to elevate the feet and focus on leaning into shoulders.

That means start the bridge with your feet on a chair or stool.

Another drill is to lay on a bench with your shoulder supported by the bench. Extend your arms and push out your shoulders horizontally. Now, to get the stretch going hold small weights or a small light bar. Generally, this is done as a drill to assess shoulder flexibility but I think with this modification you can stretch.

Start out with light weights though and work up, imo.

These sound like just the things he needs, we'll try them out. Thankee!

Outstanding! I just got done with a few reps and I am definitely in need of these extensions. I could only move my elbows about 6 inches above the start point (90 deg) - yikes.

Then my wife showed me up and did practically a full extension her first time . Haha, oh well.

I will keep at it and I thank you again for the assistance Coach, Blairbob and everyone!

~Brian

Hey all! Newbie to the forum here ^^ Been lurking around reading for past couple of weeks ! Tried the Wall Extensions today, and was suprised at how inflexible I was! I always thought I had good flexibility in my shoulders, although I do get alot of tense knotted msucles back quite regularly. So definatly gonna do more of them!

Anyway, just wanna say thanks to Coach and the rest of the guys on the forum. I've been looking for about 4 years for a method of training that I will be able to stick with for life, and I think I have found it ^^ Gymnastic, functional training! Done bodybuilding style training on and off for years, but always found it rather boring as there was nothing to progress onto, just the same boring exercises all the time, at least that was what I always thought and saw from others who trained in that sort of style...

Ok I should sh now and not go off topic xD!

Thanks again all. I will learn alot from you lot! Especially as I ordered Coach's book, dvd's and rings today!! Onward and upward!

Peace and Love,

Mike

Blairbob said:

Working bridges can increase shoulder flexibility if you focus on opening shoulders instead of back. A good way to do this is to elevate the feet and focus on leaning into shoulders.

That means start the bridge with your feet on a chair or stool.

hmmm... thanks for the tip, blair... I've been trying to use bridging as a means of increasing my active shoulder flexibility. my back can maintain a reasonable arch, but my shoulders are definitely the limiting factor. the bridge's usefulness becomes similarly limited by the amount of time one can spend with arms (rather significantly in my case) bent; should be able to spend more time in the pose if I can straighten my arms.

Ideally, there would only be a slight arch in the back in a hand bridge. It shouldn't like half of an oval, but rather should look somewhat like an obtuse triangle ( one angle greater than 90, more like 120 ).

I keep seeing people recommend shoulder dislocates, exactly how do I do these?

When I first read about them, I also didn't know how to do these, but after an easy search on youtube, I found a good video from stronglifts on shoulder dislocations so, heres the link!

Shoulder Dislocations : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=33P5AI27eiU

Just make sure to start of with your hands far apart so you can learn the correct technique ^^! Enjoy!

Peace and Love,

Mikey

Ahh, thanks for the link, I used to do this...didn't know they were called dislocates.

And does Coach Sommer approve of these? Does he do these with his own athletes?

and just how proficient can one become at these? After awhile will one be able to do them with a close shoulder width grip?

I assume it is not necessary to do those dislocations as fast as in the video? Furthermore I seem to be nowhere near that level of shoulder flexibility displayed in the video..

Morphs said:

I assume it is not necessary to do those dislocations as fast as in the video? Furthermore I seem to be nowhere near that level of shoulder flexibility displayed in the video..

That was my question, just how flexible should/can one get doing these?

And does Coach recommend them and use these with his athletes?

Shoulder Dislocates are a Great Exercise for Better Shoulder Flexibility

Shoulder dislocates are one part of a complete shoulder pre-hab series. To begin, hold a belt (or pvc, or dowel etc.) in front of you at waist height. As you lift the belt up and then backwards over your head, rather than thinking of moving your hands back, first "inlocate" or, in other words, think of rolling your shoulders forward. This will rotate the shoulder joint in the socket, making the backwards movement much smoother.

As you bring the belt back forward, first "dislocate" or roll the shoulders backward, then bring the arms around.

This drill may be done with either a regular pullup grip or a "dorsal" grip. To perform the dorsal grip, simply grip the belt behind your glutes with your hands turned thumbs out, as though you were going to do a curl. As you move your shoulders over the top, your forearms will rotate outward and place you in a dorsal grip.

In my experience, you will gain the fastest results by performing this drill when the joint is already throughly warmed up and heated; this will necessitate placing it either in between some of your working sets or at the conclusion of your workout. Also I would recommend "not" bending the elbows during this movement, as this relieves the stretch on the joint, which is the point of the exercise in the first place.

Occassionally someone will have one shoulder which lags behind in flexibility. One shoulder having a different arc of movement is not necessarily a sign of cheating or performing the movement incorrectly. Imbalances within the two shoulder joints can occur from a lifetime of training and competing. It is completely natural, at first, to have different ranges of motion within the same joint on different exercises. Unless there is a congenital condition, persistent training will alleviate the problem. Simply allow the tighter shoulder to establish the pace for improvement.

Be sure to be patient on these drills. Grinding or popping sounds are an indication that you are working too hard with too close of a grip. Flexibility training should not be pursued with as much vigor as general conditioning exercises, as injuries will quickly occur unless great care is taken.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Hey coach, this is my first post and I really appreciate all the feedback that you give to us. I found out recently that my shoulders are extremely tight from what you call "bench press syndrome." Didn't know enough in high school which caused this problem. Anyhow, I'm in the rehabilitation stage and I'm trying to get my shoulder flexibility up to par.

I am going to be doing wall extensions and shoulder dislocations.

1st question is if it is much safer if I do a proper warm-up until I do wall extension and shoulder dislocations.

2nd question is.. I saw on the other post that you recommend doing wall extensions only 2-3 times a week. Does that apply to shoulder dislocations also? Also, I want to rehabilitate faster so I was wondering if I can do these daily or will it stress too much on joints?

Thanks for your reply in advance!

Shoulder dislocates were used in my gyms warmups. We would also do them before stretching to loosen them up again in case they got stiff before doing static stretching.