Posted on March 22, 2017 by Jenny Cromack
My role as a Sports Therapist commonly exposes me to shoulder problems. Recently I have seen a huge increase in the amount of individuals complaining of shoulder pain with symptoms that suggest secondary impingment. These are often influenced by postural deficiencies (forward slumped posture of the shoulders) or muscle imbalances (overactive anterior chain muscles, and underactive posterior chain muscles). Building big strong shoulders is a desire of most trainers, such as myself, but if these are prone to giving us grief then this is a thankless task as we won’t be able to use them functionally. To help overcome this I have designed a shoulder workout that combines the principles of pre-habilitation and general shoulder strength. In doing so we can hope to turn those shoulders into boulders and keep them rock solid and pain free at the same time.
The following program supersets major strength exercises with a therapeutic or rehabilitative exercise. The strength section looks at lower rep ranges, lifting higher loads whereas the rehabilitative exercises look to use lighter loads for higher repetitions to replicate the fatigue resistant role these supporting muscles need to aid the functional shoulder.
Muscles we will be targeting in this shoulder workout will obviously all portions of the deltoids (anterior, middle, and posterior) and the trapezius, but we will also look to build muscular endurance in the rotator cuff muscles (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis), the rhomboids, and the latissimus dorsi.
This shoulder workout works as follows:
A1. Barbell Shoulder Press 5 x 5 reps
A2. Banded Face Pulls 5 x 15 reps
B1. Single Arm Standing Dumbbell Overhead Press 5 x 3 reps (Each Hand)
B2. Banded Lateral Rotation 5 x 15 (Each Hand)
C1. Db Side Raises 4 x 8
C2. Rear Delt Flys 4 x 12
D1. Stability Ball Full Plank 3 x 60 secs (maintain flat body position, arms fully locked)
D2. Single Arm Med Ball Overhead Wall Throw and Catch
This is a simple shoulder workout that combines the strength and stability elements of the shoulder to aid the construction of aesthetically pleasing shoulders whilst limiting the sacrifices of pain, instability, and postural dysfunction around the shoulders. After all who wants big shoulders that don’t work?