Pulling Dominant Routine

Hello,

I have suffered a few shoulder injuries and am at the moment rehabbing them. Due to previous sports injuries my shoulders have never been fans of pressing but pulling has always been something I can do pain free. So while my shoulders are getting better I've come up with a routine resembling the following:

I have a huge warm up that consists of shoulder mobility and rotator cuff work but it's not really relevant to my question so I won't post it.

Handstand work - either just handstands for time or handstand presses (depends on what I feel like that day)

Front or Back lever static work (alternate depending on the day)

Vertical or horizon pulling (alternate depending on the day)

Straight arm assistance exercise (dumbbell straight arm pulls)

Abs&Lower Back or assistance work for top middle and lower traps (alternate depending on the day)

My main question is am I looking at building some kind of an imbalance with this routine (weather structural or in terms of missing something to further my gymnastics development). Also keep in my mind that due to my previous injuries the planche can never be a goal for me as it always leads to my shoulders aching and if pushed injuries. Same with things like handstand pushups, while I can do them if I consistently include them in my training injuries follow.

Thank you for the help.

I am going to get into a little detail here, so I apologize in advance if this is too much.

I think that until you have developed basic pressing with proper scapular activation you have no business doing any straight arm assistance work.

In my opinion, you need to be starting with planche leans (no matter how small the forward lean is... these start with a straight arm plank) while sucking the scapulae against the rib cage. To do this you can imagine retracting the shoulder blades fully, bringing them about half way to neutral (so still retracted, but not fully retracted) and then without further protraction try to press them FORWARD through the ribs on your back. This will feel like the bone is flexing almost, similar to traps but more directly under the bone and most likely you will feel this on the medial border of the scaps from top to bottom.

The blue part in the image below is the medial border:

Positions to master scapular stability with, by group:

(Please be aware that this is a quick way for me to put things in relative order. This is no different than the pre-requisite lists that are released or what is in the book and public knowledge. Feel free to use this idea to just follow BtGB and the pre-requisite lists here on the forums. AGAIN, the groups below are a tool to explain things, not some kind of replacement for current progressions)

Group 1:

Plank

Dead arm hang

Group 2:

Planche lean

push up

bar pull ups and chin ups

PB support

Headstand

L sit

XR Support

Group 3:

PB Dips

XR Push ups

More difficult pull/chin up variations (L, false grip, etc) on bar

Handstand

Tuck Planche

Tuck FL

XR L sit

Group 4:

XR Dips

PB Russian dips

XR pull ups (shouldn't be much different on this one, for the most part, than bar)

HeSPU/HSPU

Group 5:

Muscle ups

Rope climbs

Note 1: This is pretty much the exact same progression as current practice, so follow the progression of each movement family as laid out in BtGB! The main thing I want you to do is to try and learn the scapular activation with each one before moving on. There are a number of ways to do this, and what I described above the picture is how I think of it. There are a lot of other things you may feel, including the feeling your ribs are flexing or your upper/mid lats are contracting, but you need to focus on feeling the shoulder blade literally sliding across the rib cage. Sometimes it is easier to do this lying on your back as if you were going to do bench press on the floor (or an actual bench). Holding a stick, or a bar, or dumbbells, or nothing (whatever you want to do, just mimic bench press position) at full or nearly full extension retract your shoulder blades fully, then move them about halfway back to neutral as described. Now, they are probably still touching the floor or bench. Without doing anything else (no protraction, no arm movement, no back movement) press the shoulder blade against the ribs. You may want to do this one arm at a time at first if it is too tricky to do both at the same time.

Once you master that, you should master the same thing in the plank. Once you master that in the plank, you should practice retracting and protracting in the plank WHILE keeping the shoulder blades stuck to the ribs until it is very easy to do properly all the time. NOW you will be ok to protract a bit more and do proper planche leans and beyond!

Note 2: Don't move forward to a pull or press in group 4 until you have mastered the previous groups in order. Learn this in the hang before you try it with pull ups. Learn this with pull ups on bars before you try it with pull ups on rings. And so on!

Much of the earlier group stuff will come quickly, as it is literally just an activation you have to learn. As you get into harder things you may find some temporary strength deficits. My advice is to accept them and not try to work around them... You will, fairly quickly, pass your previous marks and continue on forward into the sunrise (so to speak)!

You should find that A) this nearly completely prevents all shoulder issues in combination with reasonable prehab and B) your strength will improve much more regularly.

Hm I must say when I first read through your post I was like interesting stuff but it completely failed to answer my question. Then I tried what you talked about, while I don't exactly get the feeling of my scapula pressing against the ribs I do get a huge amount activation in the upper back area around the scapula (almost like every tiny muscle around the scapula bone is flexing) as well as some from the traps.

The most interesting part is that I tried that with planche leans like you recommended and felt no pain when I released the hold,

Now that might seem like nothing to some people but I have tried a LOT of things to get my shoulders to not have an achy feeling after letting go on anything resembling a planche movement. I'll definitely incorporate the planche leans (carefully) with the technique you talked about and see how it goes.

Thanks for the help.

I am a bit confused on your progressions list though. Are you saying I should have that feeling in all of the exercises you listed? Because some of them I am quite proficient with but don't think about actively doing what you described.

Joshua Naterman said:

In my opinion, you need to be starting with planche leans (no matter how small the forward lean is... these start with a straight arm plank) while sucking the scapulae against the rib cage. To do this you can imagine retracting the shoulder blades fully, bringing them about half way to neutral (so still retracted, but not fully retracted) and then without further protraction try to press them FORWARD through the ribs on your back. This will feel like the bone is flexing almost, similar to traps but more directly under the bone and most likely you will feel this on the medial border of the scaps from top to bottom.

The quote above is how to perform PL leans, correct?

I thought that PL leans should be performed fully protracted, or is this just to learn scapular activation?

Azure: Yes, you want to feel this to some degree in everything you do with your upper body. That doesn't mean it always needs to be the first thing you think about but at first when learning it might be. In the end you want that scapular activation to happen naturally, and in some movements you may already be there. What you are feeling sounds correct to me, and the proof is always in the shoulder No pain = you are doing it much better than you were!

Guys: I tried to be clear about this part:

The description is simply to learn the activation. First you learn the activation in the most natural place to learn it, where the scapula is in a position for serratus anterior to fire effectively and also has a lot of rib in front of it so that you have bone to press the scapula into.

After learning this position you will slowly learn this activation with more protraction and more retraction until it eventually just becomes the way your shoulder moves in all upper body work.

With planche leans, I tried to be specific and point out that first you learn activation as described and THEN you slowly learn to protract more while KEEPING the activation!

Step 1: Be able to activate your scapular muscles properly

Step 2: Be able to activate your scapular muscles properly during exercises, with form appropriate to each exercise.

That's all there is to it. Just use smart progressions like always!