Weight Loss Blog

Shoulders - One Of The Most Unstable Joints

by J.J. Flizanes of invisiblefitness.com

I found this great picture from the Mayo Clinic...I wanted you all to SEE what the shoulder joint looks like. The reason it is one of the most unstable joints ( but it is one of the most MOBILE) is because the head of the humerus ( your arm bone) is larger than the groove it fits into ( the glenoid fossa). And if you really look at it, you should wonder how the arm stays in place??? Muscle and soft tissues. Lots of different muscles attach on the humerus and around the shoulder... in fact MOST of the upperbody musculature attaches around it! There are lots of ways to abuse it and I see it ALL the time. My question to you is , if you could work the muscles WITHOUT degenerating the joint further, would you? I would think everyone would say " of course!" but I keep seeing people choose exercises that have more risk on your shoulder then you need to work the muscle. So to be brief because this could get very lengthy,

I will list the 5 top NO NO exercises.... and give you slight modifications for them.

1. Dips: a triceps exercise that puts all or most of your body weight on the shoulder in it's weakest position. If you want to work the triceps, there a many ways to do it without putting your shoulder at risk.

2. Upright rows: this causes internal rotation of the shoulder which risks impingement of the biceps tendon. What muscle are you trying to work ? I will find you several replacements! In my experience, people don't really know why they do it, they just want to work the shoulder?!?

3. Military Press behind the neck: first of all, you want to avoid as much as possible , locking both sides of your body on a bar. Most people have structural imbalances and are not even in both strength and available range of motion on both sides. Locking your arms on the same bar will exacerbate this imbalance and make it worse.

4. Lat Pulldown behind the neck: same reasons as above, pull the bar in front of you, over your chest. You will be in a better position to be more efficient with recruiting the lat fibers anyway!

5. Shoulder/Deltoid raise: if your arm is straight and you lift them to the front or to the side, there is more rotational inertia on your shoulder joint than there is resistance in the muscle moving it. Bend your arms or place the resistance closer to the joint and you can even double the amount of resistance and you have less shear on the shoulder and more efficient force on the muscle.

If you have shoulder pain and you do any of these exercises, please modify your workout. If you would like some help in further designing a routine that is safer AND effective, please call!

My trainer will not let me do dips or upright rows. I know from personal experience that military press behind the neck destroys my shoulder and I even have a hard time just rotating my shoulder into that position. It's just not natural, and Lat Pulldowns behind the neck.. same thing.. show me somewhere in nature or your during your day where you use muscles in that plane of motion. You can't. It does not happen. As for #5, I've had more success in building mass on my shoulders since following my trainers advice. I do them laying on the floor with my head tilted down so that it touches the mat. This disengages my traps and puts full attention on the deltoid. Since doing this, I've had more gains in my shoulder mass than I had in 14 years prior to training with her.

About JJ: I met JJ at a Peak Potentials event I was at in Los Angeles a few years ago. Now I subscribe to her newsletter and this is where I got this info from. It's relevant, important and right on the money, so I'm posting it.

Shoulders - One Of The Most Unstable Joints
was posted by Rob @ 7/11/2007 12:38:00 PM | Discuss this post or any other in my Weight Loss Forum

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