Two Exercises to Wipe Out Shoulder Pain
Written by Sarah Loogman
Straight up, shoulder pain sucks. I’ve been there.
In fact, I’ve been there so much around 2016 I tried to volunteer myself to surgery because I was convinced that I just had unavoidably “bad shoulders.” I remember diagnosing myself to have anatomically disadvantageous shoulders that were impeding my dreams of becoming a CrossFit Games competitor. But it hadn’t really started there - I had lived with chronic pain for almost as long as I could remember.
I think my first chiropractor appointment was somewhere around middle school when I started to have pain in my upper back. In high school, I grit my teeth through the dull hum of shoulder pain during volleyball season and then normalized the full-arm numbness I’d experience as a pole vaulter that, at its worst, would paralyze my arms for up to 10 minutes after a vault. I resigned to a year off of sports after high school as a redshirt and I spent 2-3 days per week in physical therapy, sometimes more. But there wasn’t a lot of improvement when I got back into both sports again and I spent a lot of time packaging up bags of ice in the athletic department to wrap around the majority of my upper body. Chiropractic adjustments were at least weekly, but it was hardly a relief and certainly not a solution. There were plenty of tears and a lot of frustration. Sometimes it was just resignation.
There have been a lot of things that have changed between then and now. I achieved my goal of competing at the CrossFit Games in 2017 (without any shoulder pain) and then pursued other athletic, spiritual, professional and relational endeavors since - still without pain. Normal muscle soreness sometimes, sure, but I haven’t experienced impingement, nerve pain or chronic inflammation in years. And better yet, I’ve been able to use that journey to help others be relieved of pain, too.
There’s a lot more to the story than just doing the “right exercises,” to be perfectly honest. The process for me has also been about understanding how I give and receive love, how to hug better, how to let go of grief and anger and how to live with more faith and less fear. The body is created with far more complexity than to be able to just provide a single “fix it” stimulus and expect miraculous results. Recognizing emotions, uprooting trauma and belief patterns and forming a personal relationship with God have all been equally important factors to the how I stopped living in pain and started to feel strong, stable and able. Miracles are possible and my story is one of those, but healing takes action, too.
So with that being said, I’ll share the two exercises I have found most effective to starting the journey to healing shoulder pain. They’ve been as effective for me as they have for others to not only engage the proper physiological structures, but to influence the heart of the issues, too,
If you’re ready, maybe start here:
Medicine Ball Pec Hold & Carry
This exercise is particularly effective in establishing an understanding for how the shoulders should stabilize with the utility of the pecs and teres major, rather than the use of the upper traps which can be one of the primary causes to chronic shoulder pain and movement dysfunction.
Make two opposing fists and pick up a relatively light medicine ball between your fists so that the front facing palms of the hands are pressing as opposing forces upon the ball. Generally speaking, women might use a 6 to 12lbs medicine ball and men might range from 10 to 20lbs. The ball should not rest on the chest, but should be removed from any other bodily contact by a few inches.
The primary objective of this exercise is to 1) nasal breath and 2) keep the upper traps relaxed. The height of the ball relative to the person will depend on their ability to maintain these objectives, where raising the ball higher than it should be will be demonstrated by a lifting of the shoulders or shortening of the neck muscles. In setting up for this exercise, lower the ball to the level necessary to maintain length of the neck and to be able to maintain diaphragmatic (“belly”) breathing.
At any point, if a person can no longer maintain nasal breathing or control the position of the shoulders, they should rest and reset.
There are a few different ways that you could practice varieties of this exercise:
For Distance: Carry in this manner for a total distance, resting as necessary according to the stimulus above. This might be a single accumulated length or broken into segments, but generally speaking a total distance of 200-400 meters would be best.
For Breaths: Taking slow and deliberate nasal breaths, accumulate a number of breaths whether in an accumulated total or smaller sets while holding this position. This can be a very effective way of learning to manage stress under tension. Aim to use a weight that would allow sets of 10-20 complete breath cycles.
For Duration: Set a timer for which you will hold this position, whether in an accumulated total or shorter sets. Make sure that you do not hold your breath and aim to slow your breathing down as much as possible. A total of 3-5 minutes would be a useful stimulus.
For Stability: For this one, you’ll need a partner. While holding this position, ask your partner to lightly tap the ball from both top and bottom, as well as varying angles. Without holding your breath or elevating the shoulders, practice maintaining stability against the disruption.
So what might you expect to feel?
The exercise isn’t so much the point as it is for you to create a cognitive ability to engage the supporting structures of the shoulder, namely the chest and lats. But before you get there, there’s a chance that you might feel a “burning” sensation in your forearms, biceps or front deltoid. As long as it’s not in your upper traps, that’s okay! Breathe through that discomfort. That connection is within the same fascial link as your pectoral and teres major and as you learn to manage the tension of those muscles, the “big stuff” will turn on.
Hand Over Hand Rope Pull
This exercise is especially useful for learning how to stabilize the shoulders in motion. Since we need our shoulder to operate actively and through joint flexion and extension, the hand-over-hand rope pull is a dynamic way to apply the same concept of stability practiced with the exercise above and can help increase general mobility of the shoulders, including for an overhead position.
Here’s what you need to remember during this exercise:
Place the feet wide apart; wider than your shoulders, even. If you have tight hamstrings, this is all the more important. This will allow you to create a strong connection through your hips and pelvic floor.
Keep your feet aligned and posture your weight on the inside line of your feet, or so that you can feel pressure beneath the knuckle of your big toe. Avoid a “duck” foot position; in fact, a slight pigeon-toe would be useful as long as you don’t feel impingement in doing so. This will allow your hamstrings to be active.
Hinge at the hips, rather than to squat, so that your torso is horizontal and parallel to the floor. This is important to maintain use of the lats without disengagement of the hamstrings. Coming more upright and it a squat-like position may default you towards using your low back, which should be avoided.
Your palms should be facing up, towards the sky or the ceiling. This maintain the external rotation desired to engage the lats through this exercise.
Keep your head down. Your gaze should be at your feet or the floor just beneath you. It’s tempting to look up at the sled as you wonder when you’ll be done, but this slight change of neck posture is likely to “switch” you into using the upper traps, neck and lower back - which you’re actively trying to avoid during this exercise. Don’t worry, you’ll know when the sled gets to you… it’ll practically be in your lap.
Nasal breathe. The best you can, aim to maintain a cadence of nasal breathing. If you are untrained in this area, you’ll find this harder to maintain than in the static hold of the medicine ball hold, but practice will get you more consistent. It may be helpful to alternate your inhale versus exhale every 1, 2, or 3 arm strokes as you pull the rope.
Start this exercise with relatively lighter loads that allow you to maintain unbroken sets with little interruption and nasal breathing. Overtime, increase loads. Ideally use a rope 2-3” in diameter and at least 50ft long. Because of the lack of eccentric loading in this exercise, you won’t likely experience much soreness and that’s especially a good thing if you already have chronically inflamed shoulders. Four to six sets should do the trick, once or twice per week. With experience, you could begin to incorporate this exercise with other movements, including the medicine ball hold, and get creative in your workout variety - but start simple!
Don’t have a rope? Honestly, suck it up and get one. But if that absolutely isn’t going to happen for you, you can get creative with these principles using a cable machine for a similar (but not as potent) effect.
I’ve seen these exercises be highly effective in eliminating shoulder pain within weeks where months or years of physical therapy failed. These exercises alone aren’t the solution to all of the root issues behind your shoulder pain, but I am confident that they will begin to shift your state and your structure to living with less pain, less frustration and more joy in life. For all the ways you’ve learned to live with your pain, there is freedom available.
Did you find these exercises helpful? Let us know in the comments or send an email to info@pointonevision.com - we’d love to hear from you!
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