30 Days of Shoulders: 11-20

Note: Miss the first ten tips? You bastard. Don’t worry, you can check them out here: 30 Days of Shoulders: 1-10. Day 11 – Fix Your Bench Press Setup I’ve learned from experience that if bench pressing bothers a meathead’s shoulders the last thing you should do is tell him is to stop bench pressing. He’s not going to listen to you. He’d probably rather swallow live bees. That said, for shoulder health the big player that’s often overlooked is the ability for the scapulae (shoulder blades) to move. We want them to retract, protract, upwardly rotate, downwardly rotate, all of it. To lift heavy things, however, we need to pin those bad boys down. Whenever I start working with someone and they mention how bench pressing always bothers their shoulders, rather than bog them down with a litany of corrective exercises they’re not going to do, I’ll instead audit their technique – in particular their initial setup. The shoulder blades should be together and down. This is crucial to help save your shoulders during the bench press and to ensure a more stable base to hoist a barbell off your chest. Day 12 – Guide the Bar During the Bench Press Taking things a step further, I’d be remiss not to also discuss how to unrack the barbell properly. It doesn’t make much sense to spend all that effort to get tight on your setup only to press the barbell off the j-hooks and lose it all. Learning to guide the barbell off the hooks rather than pressing it is a skill and takes some practice to master. It’ll make a massive difference in helping to cement your setup for benching success. Day 13 – Meet the Bar During the Bench Press A common technique flaw with the bench press is people allowing their shoulders to roll forward in the bottom position (or when the barbell approaches the chest). One simple cue I like to use is, “Meet the bar with your chest.” For most people, most of the time, it’s far more advantageous to focus on bringing the chest towards the bar rather than the bar to the chest. This not only helps maintain more of an arch with the upper back (which, not coincidentally, also makes it easier to keep the shoulder blades retracted and depressed or in a stable position), but it also helps reduce the likelihood of the shoulders dumping forward. Day 14 – The Spoto Press The Spoto press is one of my favorite bench accessory movements for a variety of reasons: Stopping an inch or two from the chest reduces the range of motion, so you can think of it as an “invisible 2-board press.” This means it’s a viable pressing option for those with cranky shoulders. It’s an excellent exercise for those who have a tendency of allowing their shoulders to “roll” forward as the bar approaches their chest. The rolling motion places the shoulders in a more anteriorly tilted (unstable) position, which in turn makes you a shitty bench presser. Too many people fail just off the chest, so the Spoto press makes it so you spend more time within the ROM you’re weakest. This variation lends itself well to high(er) reps (8-12) using 65-75% of your 1RM. Side Note: If anyone calls you out for doing half reps when doing this exercise, feel free to drop-kick them in the kidney. And tell them the guy who invented it, Eric Spoto, used this variation exclusively to help build his RAW bench press to a previously held world record of 722 pounds. Day 15 – The Decline Press If a flat or incline bench press bothers your shoulders you’re not doomed to a life of push-up purgatory. Instead, try the decline position. Why? It reduces the degree of shoulder flexion you’re in when you press and helps keep you out of the “danger zone” or pain arc with regards to shoulder flexion. This is huge because it allows for a training effect to be accomplished while using a shoulder-friendly pressing variation. And as Dr. John Rusin has stated, it’s never a bad idea to expose people to different angles of training to better challenge joint centration. Adding some variety in pressing motions can go a long ways in keeping shoulders healthy. The bigger lesson, though, is having a better appreciation that you can always train around an injury. Always. Day 16 – Accessing the Back Squat I like the back squat. However, I’m not married to it and recognize that it’s not a good fit for many lifters. One of the main contraindications would be one’s ability to “access” the shoulder range of motion needed to place a (straight) barbell on his or her back. Back squatting with a straight bar requires a significant amount of shoulder abduction and external rotation. While there are a host of screens, assessments, and correctives that can be used to help someone gain access, the quick drill above works swimmingly. Day 17 – Scrape the Rack Press If I want to introduce more traditional overhead pressing variations into my clients’ programs using a barbell, the scrape the rack press is one of my go-to introductory variations. I like it because I’m able to
Origin: 30 Days of Shoulders: 11-20