[cleveryoutube video=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFq5J7ESeko” vidstyle=”1″ pic=”” afterpic=”” width=”” starttime=”” endtime=”” caption=”” showexpander=”off” alignment=”center” newser=””]
To often I see people in the gym squatting wrong, over head pressing wrong, bench pressing wrong and even doing pushups wrong.
Yes part of it has to do with them not knowing the techniques of these exercises
But there’s a huge part that a lot of people aren’t aware of that’s making them perform these exercises wrong and risking injury.
It has to do with shoulder mobility.
Since 99.9 percent of people work in front of a computer, drive all day, and sit in class for hours we all share a common flaw. Our postures are horrible in the seated position. Over time this causes an imbalance in the upper extremities.
This imbalance is called the upper cross syndrome.
That’s a fancy name for a forward shoulder lean. The cause of the forward shoulder lean is having tight anterior muscles (like the chest and front delts). This is partly due to the fact that we all lean forward while sitting.
This position keeps our front muscles contracted and our back muscles stretched for hours on end.
I hope now you’re starting to see where the problem begins.
And to add on top of this problem a lot of people perform too many front exercises (like bench press, front deltoids raises and even crunches) while neglecting the back. All this is going to do is further facilitate the upper cross syndrome.
And since we all sit way more than we should we get a double dose of tightness
How do I fix this?!?!
Ok first things first
Drop the pretty boy workouts and stop concentrating on the muscles you can only see. You have back muscles you know.
Start doing more pulling movements like rows and its variations
The second thing is to fix your posture.
By doing more pulling movements you’ll be strengthening you back muscles. Which will help in fixing your posture. Unfortunately that’s not all you have to do.
You’re still going to have to work on reminding yourself to keep your shoulder blades retracted while sitting. You have to reteach your muscles the new pattern you want to sit in.
No more hunched backs
The last thing you need to do to fix this issue is: implement the shoulder dislocators and band pull apart exercises that I show in the video
Doing these exercises with your dynamic warm up and on your rest days will further help you in getting your shoulders healthy and back to normal.
Beginners should start out with a wider grip and as their shoulder mobility increases, the grip should gets closer and closer. This of course takes time and consistency.
You don’t want to mess with your shoulders. They’re usually the first joint to go since the range of motion is so great.
I personally like to do 10 reps of shoulder dislocate and 10 reps of band pull apart until I feel my shoulders are warmed up for training.
I hope you enjoyed today’s article. Please share with anyone that you think has a forward shoulder lean, which is everyone 😉
Talk to you later,
