This is very helpful , thanks!
Scott
I was starting to think about building a swiss bar, but reading this I realize all I need to do is use dumbells for presses LOL. Not that I wouldn’t want a swiss bar for sure if I could not use a normal barbell for presses, but for me this is just to prevent shoulder injuries not to train around existing injuries.
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OHP always kills my shoulders. Probably a factor with my bench volume too
Now that I’m going to self program, I want to bring my shoulders up via lateral raise, rear delt swing and these:
Maybe rotate in neutral grip dumbbell Z press too
Check this out.
Scott
After hurting my shoulder doing presses and visiting a surgeon who told me about lifters shoulder, he told me to lift using dumbbells keeping them close together. No pain in the shoulders until you get up around the 100’s, and then you do feel that.
There is a video of me pressing them on my IG feed.
There is that one bar that has many different grip options on it. I’d go with one of those. I wish my gym carried that bar. When I get a house again, I will have all the nifty toys. And lifting off the floor removes joint stress too.
I don’t know if I believe this guy has never used steroids or not, but he sure knows the shoulder joint.
Sounds like possibly a form issue. Did you make sure to always pin your shoulders down and back (like you would on bench or overhead press)? Many people don’t, and that brings their shoulders forward way out of position.
Look into the Kavuki Kadillac bar. It’s more expensive than normal Swiss bars, but it’s cambered and the handles aren’t in line with the weight, they’re above it, so it’s not unstable at all. YouTube it and you’ll see some well known people discussing and demonstrating it. The sleeves can come off to make shipping cheap and I believe they may spin which helps take more pressure away from wrists and shoulders.
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I often hear about people doing pure bodybuilding training getting injured from pretty simple exercises. The not training for strength leaves the tendons and ligaments weak and contributes to injury.
It has 3 sets of parallel hand spacing only. I tend to use the mid-point as a happy medium for most exercises as the widest point stresses my shoulder. The narrowest grip is very useful for the close grip bench.
I have also messed around with trap bar presses, which again are quite a useful alternative to barbell pressing (both horizontal and vertical). The downside is its weight and the fact it can be a bit more cumbersome getting into position. Otherwise, great all round tool.
Dips!!
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As mentioned, despite my shoulder issues, I always found Gironda wide grip dips conducive to good shoulder health, even while weighted. In summary, hands spaced about 33in apart, body kept upright, chin slightly tucked in, ankles crossed and slightly in front of you. I actively try to keep my shoulders back and down throughout. I find narrower grips, also ring dips, less comfortable/more problematic.
One of most productive dip versions for me is using a heavy resistance band for load (anchored to the floor, pulling me down) instead of plates on a dipping belt. My stands are adjustable, so it is just a case of extending them when I want to increase tension. Simple but really effective, especially when you are accentuating the negative.
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Thanks. I did notice trap bars looked like they could be made to work at a much lower cost, but as you say cumbersome for the purpose. No getting around the good quality multi grip bars being worth the price for the safety alone, but too rich for my blood at this time so I will probably stick with dumbbells when trying to avoid shoulder injury on presses.
I like that idea. It provides the right kind of accommodating resistance - less force when you are at the bottom with the shoulder in a stretched position, and then increasing as you push to the top and gain the advantage of leverage.
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Watch Clint Walker do dips etc!!
Scott
The problem I have with Straight-Arm Pulldown/Pullbacks is too munch inner head of the triceps.
I have a movement partway between POs and Pulldowns that isolates the lats very well AND removes biceps and/or forearm/grip as weak links. One-Handle Pulldowns/POs, done on the double-pulley portion of the pulldown machine (single pulley can work if need be). A single handle is used and you grip it by interlacing the fingers of both hands over the top. You start w/ the handle over your head and then pull Down and Back, until your forearms hit the top portion of your stomach. Do NOT pull straight back — instead pivot ONLY at the shoulder joint while keeping the elbows in roughly the same position throughout! (~90-deg elbow keeps the triceps out of it too!)
Part PO and Part PD and ALL Lat Pump!!! Best, Scott
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I like the dumbbell/barbell pullover more than the straight arm pulldown because of how much tricep and ab were getting worked on the straight arm pulldown. It made it really hard to focus on feeling it in my lats, and with the pullover I get a great stretch feeling in my lats.
Gironda dip, as demonstrated by some dude called Larry Scott!!
Regarding the Beardsley article on training the lats, here were my main takeaways:
“Yet, the latissimus dorsi is a prime mover only in shoulder adduction and extension. It is not a prime mover in shoulder horizontal extension or in shoulder internal rotation, as the rotator cuff muscles are more important. Similarly, its contributions to spine lateral flexion and spine extension are likely quite small.”
So your best bang for the buck would be to focus on exercises which target those two movements. Of course, if you are trying to go beyond that, and leave no stone unturned, then you might have to do more exercises.
With regard to shoulder extension:
“…the shoulder extensor moment arm of the latissimus dorsi changes with shoulder elevation angle, although its curve is quite flat. At low degrees of shoulder elevation (the arms by the sides), the shoulder extensor moment arm length is quite short. A broad peak is reached at 45 degrees of shoulder elevation, and then as the shoulder is elevated beyond 60 degrees, the shoulder extensor moment arm decreases linearly. Surprisingly, the latissimus dorsi has no leverage at all for shoulder extension once the arm is elevated beyond 120 degrees.”
“In practice, only the inferior (pelvic) region of the latissimus dorsi has a shoulder extension moment arm above 120 degrees of shoulder elevation. Even so, at lower levels of shoulder elevation, the superior (thoracic) region has the longest moment arm length. The latissimus dorsi shoulder extension moment arm lengths of all regions peak between 30 and 60 degrees. Thus, it seems likely that shoulder extension exercises that involve peak force between 30–60 degrees of shoulder elevation will target the superior (thoracic) region of the latissimus dorsi, while exercises that involve peak force above 120 degrees will be somewhat effective for the inferior (pelvic) region.”
So the pullover machine for a full range of motion hits everything. But if you decide not to bring your elbows up high and overhead, to spare your shoulders, you aren’t giving up much. And some kind of narrow grip pulldown movement that produces peak resistance in the 30-60 degree range ought to be a pretty good substitute for an (expensive) pullover machine.
As for shoulder adduction:
“the shoulder adduction moment arm of the latissimus dorsi changes with shoulder elevation angle, peaking at 70 degrees of shoulder elevation. Above and below this level, the shoulder adduction moment arm is much shorter, but it is still present.”
“In practice, it seems likely that shoulder adduction exercises that involve peak force at 65–75 degrees of shoulder elevation will be most effective for training the latissimus dorsi, although this will cause preferential development of the middle (lumbar) and inferior (pelvic) regions.”
So while a BNTA would be ideal for training this movement, you could probably get most of the benefits by doing a wide grip pull-down in a cable cross over apparatus, focusing on 45-90 range of movement, pulling your elbows down and in.
== Scott==
This is interesting because I’ve been thinking one apparatus I don’t have and would come in handy for this kind of thing is a cable crossover machine like a Nautilus Freedom trainer. The problem with those is the arms stick out a mile and I don’t have the room for that so I’m going to start looking for a more compact cable cross over machine where the pulleys slide up and down on bars.