27 Tips For Healthier Shoulders

by jasonferruggia.com

I’ve spent the last two and a half decades pounding the shit out of my shoulders. While that sucks for me it’s actually good news for you. Why, you ask? Because when you’ve torn traps, rotator cuffs and labrums you develop a pretty keen interest in avoiding shoulder injuries.

You also develop a pretty good MacGyver instinct about how to work around them. And today I’m going to share some of that information with the Renegade Army.

Here is a list of 27 tips that will help you keep your shoulders strong and healthy.

1) Do YTWL’s as a Warm Up Before Every Workout- This is an awesome way to fire up all the muscles you need to protect your shoulders against injury.

2) Do 30-50 Reps Per Day of Shoulder Dislocations With a Broomstick- This increases mobility and pumps healing nutrients into your shoulders. Do this every day of the week for a month and I can almost guarantee you that your shoulders will feel better.

3) Do Vertical Pressing Before Horizontal Pressing- If you are going to do some form of military press and some form of bench press in the same workout try doing the overhead work first. I have found this to be a great way to avoid pain and strengthen your shoulders. I can’t explain exactly why but the overhead work just seems to prepare you better for the bench pressing variations. I have had numerous people try this (many of whom had pain with any form of benching with a bar or dumbbells) and they all reported feeling significantly better.

4) Begin the First Rep of Any Set of Military Presses with a Slight Leg Drive- You don’t have to turn the whole set into push presses but you do want to use a slight leg drive to at least get the very first rep moving. The reason for that is because pressing the bar off your front delts from a dead stop with no momentum can be very stressful. It’s the most stressful part of the entire rep. Unless you are competing in some kind of strict pressing contest I’d recommend using the leg drive. If you have preexisting shoulder injuries you may want to do a slight push press on every rep.

5) At the End of Each Set of Military Presses You Do Hold the Bar in the Top Position- This is sometimes referred to as structural integrity work and can help strengthen, stabilize and bulletproof the shoulders. I recommend holding the bar up there at lockout (the joints are meant to lock and support load so forget about that myth that you should never lock out) for three to five seconds. On the last set of the day you could hold it up there for ten seconds or longer.

6) Use a Swiss Bar Instead of Straight Bar for Horizontal Pressing- The Swiss bar allows you to press with your palms facing in towards each other which is far more natural and a lot safer. If you train at home or some type of small warehouse gym I highly recommend ordering. I would ALWAYS make that my bar of choice if I were ever to bench press again.

7) Swap Out Bench Presses For Low Incline Presses- Most regular readers know by now that I’m not a huge fan of the flat bench press. But I do like having big barbell movements in the program as indicator lifts. The low inline press, with the bench set to somewhere between fifteen and thirty degrees was a favorite chest exercise of six time Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates. This variation hits the pecs more effectively and is less stressful on the shoulder. Even better is the low incline press with the Swiss Bar.

8] Never Bench Press With a Wide Grip- In powerlifting it’s known that using a wider grip reduces the range of motion and thus, theoretically you should be able to press more weight. The downside is that the wide grip puts your shoulders through hell so you should really consider avoiding it and only benching with a close to medium grip width. The widest I would ever recommend is pinkies in the rings and even closer than that for most people. You have to think long term and remember that if you shoulders are destroyed you won’t even be able to bench the bar eventually.

The great Konstantinovs knows the importance of this and has discussed it in the past. Here he is in the video below benching 507 for 3 with what many might consider a close grip.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7TIUMm8uQQ&feature=player_embedded]

9)  If You Do Flat or Incline Presses With Dumbbells Always Use a Neutral Grip- As mentioned above, the neutral grip is a lot more natural and allows you to keep your elbows in tighter while sparing your shoulders.

10) Always Keep Your Shoulder Blades Fully Squeezed Together During Horizontal Pressing Movements- Whenever you are lying on your back and pressing a bar or dumbbells you want to maintain a very tight, bunched up feeling in your upper back and never allow your shoulder blades to come apart. This keeps the shoulders in a much stronger and safer position.

11) Do More Pushups- Pushups are still one of my top ten favorite exercises and always will be. They are also significantly better for your shoulders than any other form of horizontal pressing with a bar or dumbbells. Pushups are highly underrated because people don’t know how to load them properly or do advanced variations.

For loading you can get a weighted vest, chains, a Power Pushup (which is awesome) or even have a partner hold weight plates on your back. A great loading variation, and one that is very comfortable is to place a sandbag on your back with or without additional weight vests.

12)  Do Suspended Pushups- Suspended pushups with rings or the Jungle Gym XT call even more muscles into play and force your stabilizer muscles to fire even harder. This is great for building up injury proof shoulders.

13) Do Kettlebell Turkish Get Ups- If you could only do one rehab/prehab/shoulder stabilization exercise this would probably have to be it, in my opinion. Make them a regular part of your routine and your shoulders will feel better.

14) Practice Handstand Holds- This is very similar to the concept of holding the barbell overhead only in this case you are holding your own bodyweight which increases neuromuscular activation and makes it significantly more effective. I recommend kicking up into a handstand against the wall at the end of each upper body workout and holding it for as long as possible.

When you get good at that try removing the wall. This is great for shoulder stabilization.

15) Walk on Your Hands- Once you get comfortable with handstands start walking laterally along the wall with your feet still in contact with it. Eventually, once you master your handstands you can start walking without the wall. In the meantime, slap a Power Wheel on your feet and walk up and down the gym floor or across a field. A great goal to shoot for is being able to walk 100 yards on your hands.

You can make hand walking even more challenging by doing Alligator pushups with the Power Wheel . Any type of dynamic range of motion exercise like this that has you moving positions on each rep is great for strengthening the shoulders.

16) Don’t go Excessively Heavy On Curls- Heavy barbell or dumbbell curls can place a lot of stress on the biceps tendon and lead to shoulder issues. For this reason I rarely recommend curls below six reps. With more advanced trainees I always keep curls in the 10-15 rep range.

Heavy curls can beat your shoulders up a lot worse than you might think. I recommend avoiding them.

17) Initiate Each Rep on Curls With a Slight Cheat- Just like the bottom position of the military press, the bottom position of a curl is very stressful to the shoulder. I recommend hitching at the waist and leaning slightly forward then extending your hips and cheating the weight the first couple inches out of the bottom.

This doesn’t mean you heave the weight up and get sloppy. Quite the contrary. Just use the momentum to initiate the movement and then keep maximal tension on the biceps throughout by squeezing and contracting them as hard as you can. On the eccentric actively contract your triceps by imagining doing a pushdown.

Using  this cheat technique can extend the life of your shoulders and elbows greatly.

18)  Don’t do Curls on the Same Day You Do Heavy Pressing- After a heavy pressing workout the shoulders may be pretty trashed. If you stress them even more with heavy curls the biceps tendon may start acting up and giving you problems. I have found in a large majority of cases where guys where getting shoulder pain from doing curls, that if we moved it to another day or didn’t do the curls after heavy pressing the problem started to dissipate. If you have no shoulder issues this probably won’t be a problem.

Now, if you don’t have any shoulder issues, this recommendation isn’t for you and I wouldn’t really worry about it. But if you are having shoulder problems you might want to give this one a try.

19) Don’t do Incline Curls at an Angle Any Lower Than 60 Degrees- Incline curls are great for training the biceps from a stretched position, but they also stretch the ligaments as well as the muscles. If you have shoulder issues make sure to keep the bench set no lower than 60 degrees.

20) Do Dips on Gymnastics Rings Instead of Parallel Bars- Unlike the bars which keep you in more of a fixed plane, the rings allow you to move naturally and you can work around the pain.

If I could only do one upper body pressing exercise to build and strengthen the chest, shoulders and triceps this would probably be it.

That’s not to say that dips on parallel bars aren’t great, because they are. But if you can’t do them due to injury this could be a better option for you.

21)  Eliminate the Eccentric Component of Olympic Lifts by Dropping the Bar- Olympic lifting variations can be hard on those with shoulder injuries mainly because of the stress that comes from lowering a heavy load so rapidly. If you do high pulls with a lot of weight it can yank away pretty good at those shoulders on the way down, no matter how good your technique is. The simple solution is to simply do singles and drop the bar between each rep.

22) Use a Sled for Explosive Pulls Instead- Louie Simmons turned me onto sled work back in the 90’s and I have found it to be an invaluable asset in the training of clients ever since. A great way to use the sled is to replace barbell Olympic lifts with explosive sled pulls.

Simply hook up a pair of TRX straps to the sled, get in the same position you would be to start a high pull (except that your hands will be out in front of you holding the straps instead of by your knees holding the bar) and then explode up the same way you would with a bar, shooting for triple extension while pulling the straps up toward your chest. Walk backwards to pull out the slack in the straps, bend over and repeat for the prescribed number of reps.

This is an awesome way to get explosive pulling in and simulate Olympic lifts when you can’t do them due to shoulder problems.

You can order a sled HERE.

23) Don’t Do Excessively Heavy Weighted Chin Ups- Each year I get more and more down on heavy, weighted chins. They just seem to lead to too many injuries and shoulder problems. In the past I’d had guys do weighted chins for three reps. Nowadays I would never go below a 6RM weight on weighted chins in most cases simply because the injury risk is too high. There’s just too much stress on the shoulder when you’re hanging from the bar with a bunch of plates around your waist.

And from a hypertrophy perspective, most people seem to turn a good lat exercise into a shitty biceps exercise when they start loading chins.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Some people can do weighted chins with no problems. If you can do ten reps with perfect form and a 45 pound plate around your waist more power to you. I’d stick in that rep range and, again, never really go below six reps. If you want to do triples make sure it’s for a multiple sets with a six rep weight.

But if your shoulders are a bit questionable you’re definitely not one of the guys who can or should do weighted chins. You’d be better off keeping the volume up and progressing by adding more total weekly volume over time.

24) Don’t Go Excessively Heavy On Rowing Exercises- All the same things that apply to heavy chins apply to heavy rows, although I think the heavy rows are slightly less dangerous and would be more likely to increase loading on those before chin ups. Over time, however, you will find that a lot really heavy low rep rowing starts to yank away at that shoulder pretty good and can lead to long term damage. Again, best to keep the weights a little lighter and the reps a little higher on these types of exercises. This advice doesn’t necessarily apply to beginners but when you get stronger this is something that you might want to heed.

I prefer to have my guys do their heavy pulling in the form of deadlifts.

25) Do Band Pull Aparts- Simply grab a medium strength band hold it out in front of you and try to rip it apart. Pull it out all the way so that your arms are straight out to your sides (while maintaining a very slight bend in them throughout) like a T and squeeze your shoulder blades together for 30-60 seconds. Hitting a few sets of these to strengthen your upper back and prevent injuries is a great way to finish off your upper body day.  Heck, they take so little out of you because there is no eccentric, that they can be done upwards of 5-6 times per week if need be.

26) Don’t Squat With a Low Bar Placement- Low bar squats are great because of certain mechanical advantages they give you. They also put the shoulder under a hell of a lot more stress than high bar squatting does. Stick with high bar squatting or find a comfortable happy medium. But never use an extreme low bar position if you have shoulder problems or want to avoid them in the future.

27) Do Kettlebell Snatches- As I’ve mentioned in the past, I don’t think that doing millions of reps per week on this exercise is a good idea as some diehard kettlebell enthusiasts do. But doing a more tolerable number like a few sets of 10-20 reps a couple days per week can be a great shoulder strengthener and help prevent against future injuries.

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