Vary Your Presses
The shoulder is a complex joint/series of joints.
One part sits on your back that has to move and articulate with your actual shoulder head.
Your smaller muscles in there make sure that the ball joint stays nice and tight to that socket.
Then you have many other muscles, like the traps, that have to stabilize different sides of the shoulder blade at different times and angles.
Long story short, it’s friggin’ complicated.
And there are so many “best” practices out there. However, it really comes down to what you want to do with your shoulders.
If you want to lift serious weight and move your own bodyweight like a gymnast all while keeping shoulders that are mobile, stable, and pain free?
Then you came to the right place.
In this 3 part article/video series, we are discussing best practices we have gathered over the years to keep your shoulders mobile, stable, and able.
Recently we had an athlete ask us about her shoulder getting fried in the upper bicep tendon while bench pressing.
Our first remedy and one of the staples of our training in general is…
Vary the angles of your pressing
While it is fun to push the limits on bench or overhead lifts, we find that with varying the angles of your press and what apparatuses you actually lift, you can still be strong, keep your mobility, and avoid overuse injuries/issues.
When we repeatedly strengthen the shoulder in the same angle and motion we very quickly over develop certain areas.
Tip #1 - Try varying your press to see if that eliminates any issues and still allows you to have progress in some form of pressing strength.
“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”
Really strong and happy shoulders should be taught how to be strong and stable in a lot of ranges of motion. When we are training the shoulder girdle what we are really doing is teaching all the complexities of the shoulder to fire muscles in correct sequences to stabilize the shoulder correctly. Being strong on one lift doesn’t mean your shoulders are actually strong and robust. A big chunk of strength in a lift is the movement efficiency you develop doing that movement over and over. That movement efficiency doesn’t necessarily mean your shoulders are strong and able to stabilize during a whole host of ranges of motion, though.
When we find people having issues during one specific moving pattern, it usually means they are overdoing it.
One remedy? Try dumbbell shoulder press. If that causes no issues, spend the next few weeks strengthening this pattern and you won’t lose much pressing strength in the bench. After a few weeks, you can try to go back to bench and you’ll probably find that that shoulder issue has cleared up.
Main point: if you're finding issues in one movement pattern/lift with the shoulder, try varying the load, angles, and rep ranges.
Here are some variations to consider:
#1 Dumbbell Bench Press
We love cycling back and forth from barbell bench press and DB bench press
Why? Because oftentimes our non-dominant arm hides underneath our dominant arm. So switching to DB’s every so often can still elicit some serious strength gains while forcing that non-dominant arm to increase its stability.
#2 Seated Shoulder Press
If you only have a barbell and a bench, try doing some good ole seated shoulder press.
Why? For one, it takes the shoulder out of the extension pattern of the bench press and into the flexion pattern. Changing positions or challenging the shoulder in a different range while pressing allows us to keep up pressing strength and getting in a new range can take care of the issues you may be having while pressing.
If none of these are doing the trick then you can really take it down and notch.
#3 Half Kneeling KB Press
Why? While half kneeling, we force the trunk to be in a good position to integrate some high quality shoulder movement. You are challenging stability and mobility while also working in a proper shoulder turn. When pressing with a barbell we limit shoulder rotation as we are in a closed chain exercise. The KB being and open chain exercise allows you to strengthen natural shoulder rotation through the press movement. Doing this alone can be a reactive stability drill which means the brain figures out how to stabilize and get all the muscles of the shoulders synced up.
#4 Decline Bench Press
If you have a bench that is adjustable you can try doing decline bench press. This actually recruits the pecs even more and takes a little load off of the shoulder.
If you are having issues in one pressing motion, just try varying your press and you will most likely find a range of motion that doesn’t bother it. You’ll be on your way to creating robust shoulders that are strong in more ranges of motion instead of being really good at one range of motion.
In part two we are going to talk about making sure you have proper structural balance in your shoulders from your prime movers down to your rotator cuff strength and learn how to apply that new found shoulder strength/balance into stabilizing some serious weight.
If you haven’t done so already, check out our body preparedness quiz that helps identify where you could improve upon your physiology and health routines.
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Garry Dubbs is the Co-Creator of ATH Fitness
His main objective in life is to increase people's physical capabilities to allow them to try and explore more things that are fun. If you can only walk, you’re not going to try many new things. But if you can be totally confident in your body’s capabilities, then you will make the world your playground. That’s why for a limited time, ATH is offering the Rugged Body Mobility Guide for FREE! It is a quick total mobility guide that is designed to make your body ready for anything! Just put your email in below and we will get you started on becoming an All Terrain Human, TODAY!