@believer423 good timing - I’m lecturing on shoulder rehab & scapular retraining in 5 days
OP, to put it simply, you’re overthinking it. Just row and forget your serratus anterior. If you’re concerned about your ability to activate your middle back, I strongly recommend the chest-supported T-bar row as the least fuck-upable row imaginable. If you feel like your traps are always really tight, make sure you get a big stretch on the eccentric of the row.
The reasons I say this are:
- The serratus anterior and rowing muscles are antagonists. The serratus will protract the scaps, whilst the traps and rhomboids will retract them. You absolutely cannot (and shouldn’t even try to) feel your serratus when rowing
- In my clinical experience as a physiotherapist, most people with chronic mid-back tightness never let their traps and rhomboids stretch under load when doing upper body pulls. Getting them to actually let these muscles stretch out generally leads to large and immediate improvements in middle back tightness
- There is no high-quality evidence to suggest scapular motion is a predictor of injury, nor any evidence to suggest it can even be changed