Hey I got a question about Retracting the scapula
My shoulder hasn’t been goo for a couple months now…it’s internally rotated badly (left shoulder) and anwyays I was just wondering when doing corrective exercises…or even ANY exercises for that matter…(those that do YTWL drill etc.)
Is it okay to shrug up and retract…or are we supposed to depress and then retract the scapula?
Thanks!
Back and down. That should be your cue to yourself. If your working on corrective exercises first do some serious pec stretching before hitting your scapular retraction exercises. Then when you go to hit your retractors let’s say for example with a rowing movement do the following: get in that back and down posture so shoulder blades are retracted. Have a person put their index finger on one shoulder blade and thumb on the other to cue you. Now start to row while maintaining that position. the person’s fingers give you a tactile cue and let you know if your losing that position.
Just FYI, you’d be surprised how so many strong guys can’t hold this posture. It’s because of lack of rhomboid strength from either lack of rowing or poor rowing technique causing excessive protraction (shoulders foward) and internal rotation of the arms (backs of hands facing foward).
Thanks Shedosk! So while doing BB rows it’s obviosuly back of hands are facing forward…do you recommend more seated rowing and one arm rows to change that?
Thanks!
I think any kind of rowing is fine. Whatever floats your boat really as long as you maintain that good scapular position (probably a little harder with a BB row).
I personally found that a chest supported rowing device like a hammer strength rower is good with cable rows as an alternative choice. Here’s what I did when I had shoulder impingement: I worked on rowing (on hammer strength rower) with weight that I could pull 8-10 reps with while holding form. Once i could hold form consistently (3 sessions or so over the span of about a week) I started jacking the weight so that I was pulling 5 sets of 5 reps. I mainly did this because I sensed that I had a severe weakness in my back and wanted to bring it up quick.
End result: I cleared up an 8 month impingement syndrome in the span of about 2 weeks when all the rotator cuff exercises in the world didn’t help. The reason was simple: i had a serious scapular stabilization problem.
I just decided recently to adjust my shoulder rotation. The exercises I found most helpful were kroc rows, narrow grip barbell rows (overhand), and seated rows. Think about the goal of shoulder stability more than huge lats. Those exercises, for me, hit the retractors and low/mid traps more.
Yeah, I tried to do the kroc rows but they were irritating my supraspinatus. I REALLY want to do seated rows though because that doesn’t bug me…but I don’t have that machine at my house (i workout at home) so I’ve been looking for somewhere I can get a decent one that I will have for life.
SteelNation…thanks for that article…I have a subscrpition to elitefts and get their weekly articles and news and seemed to have missed that one! (how ironic lol)
Definately will be adding a few of those exercises for the upper body I saw.
Do you do any of the lower body exercises? or follow any of their routines?
Wide-Grip Shrugdowns
Williams Shrugs
Cable-Crossover Shrugdowns
these all work the muscles around the shoulder blades and I feel they help stabalize the shoulders on bench.
Also hit the rear delts
Ras, if you have a rack, or a something solid and immobile, you can rig your own with rope and spare weights.
I think I’m going to have to lol…I was looking for some deals on cable systems…damn they are pretty expensive. I do have a power rack…I’m sure it wouldnt be too hard to attach a pulley system, and just buy some handles. Mmmm I think it’s gonna have to happen! lol
[quote]Shedosk wrote:
Back and down. That should be your cue to yourself. If your working on corrective exercises first do some serious pec stretching before hitting your scapular retraction exercises. Then when you go to hit your retractors let’s say for example with a rowing movement do the following: get in that back and down posture so shoulder blades are retracted. Have a person put their index finger on one shoulder blade and thumb on the other to cue you. Now start to row while maintaining that position. the person’s fingers give you a tactile cue and let you know if your losing that position.
Just FYI, you’d be surprised how so many strong guys can’t hold this posture. It’s because of lack of rhomboid strength from either lack of rowing or poor rowing technique causing excessive protraction (shoulders foward) and internal rotation of the arms (backs of hands facing foward).[/quote]
this was a very useful post, thanks.
I actually have another question with regard to that rowing…are you saying as well we keep our shoulder blades in that retracted position throughout the whole movement of rowing? (as in not letting shoulders stretch during end of eccentric portion)
Thanks!
[quote]rasturai wrote:
I actually have another question with regard to that rowing…are you saying as well we keep our shoulder blades in that retracted position throughout the whole movement of rowing? (as in not letting shoulders stretch during end of eccentric portion)
Thanks![/quote]
What are you rowing for? It all comes down to specificity.
If you’re training for bench, it might be more specific to that lift to hold a scapular position similar to your bench set up. If you’re training for a deadlift, note that in competition most have some protraction at max weights. If you’re training for bodybuilding, some pretty big fellows recommend full protraction to get an extra bit of stretch in the muscle.
I find that if you just keep a neutral spine and pull with some power and it’s honestly pretty hard to mess up.
Scap pushups.
I do these ytlw and plenty of dislocates, face pulls, rear delt work
and it helps with my busted shoulder
[quote]challer1 wrote:
[quote]rasturai wrote:
I actually have another question with regard to that rowing…are you saying as well we keep our shoulder blades in that retracted position throughout the whole movement of rowing? (as in not letting shoulders stretch during end of eccentric portion)
Thanks![/quote]
What are you rowing for? It all comes down to specificity.
If you’re training for bench, it might be more specific to that lift to hold a scapular position similar to your bench set up. [/quote] Not really… That basically turns the row into a static for your scapular manipulators while the rear delts, lats and/or teres (emphasis depends on whether you flare or tuck elbows etc) and, if your technique isn’t too great or you’re going underhand/ v-handle, the arm flexors do all the work…
The thing is, you are already doing statics while benching. If statics were all it took, then you could just keep benching and your retractors would keep getting stronger at a nice pace, but unless they are super weak, that won’t happen.
In order to actually increase the size of the relevant muscles and make them significantly stronger, you want to have some ROM there…
Statics alone don’t nearly suffice for those things. You need a thick and very strong upper back, esp. for raw benching, big high incline shoulder presses etc.
So initiate the row via the muscles acting on the scapulae and pulling the shoulders back, the arm-bending should happen almost automatically then (but it’s not what you want to think about and initiate the lift with, it starts a split second after the initiation of the rep)… And your shoulder blades should end up fully retracted with shoulders all the way back at the end of the positive and elbows somewhere under your shoulders (roughly… But think of getting the shoulders all the way back, not having them roll forward so the elbows can come back further).
Pulling that way esp. on Kroc’s etc most people are very weak at first (it’s also more difficult to learn on krocs imo, easier when using two hands simultaneously), but if you stick with it and get stronger (eventually you’ll end up stronger than if you were doing it with the usual emphasis on arm flexors, rear delts and some lats) it will do very nice things for your bench, backthickness and shoulder health.
It just means swallowing the ego at first and making an effort to do things the right way…
Absolutely essential for DC training and similar styles too, where you don’t have many movements available in general and technique needs to be spot on to help balance out the pressing.
Now on krocs if you want more lat you can just reach down more to get more of a stretch, and if you do the scapular-pulling technique right, then body English can be added no problem… But doing it like most do (shoulders always slightly rounded or generally in the same position throughout the lift and it’s all arms, rear delt, bit of lats) and basically doing a double dip (like a push jerk, just for rows haha) then you’re really not going to get much backthickness and retractor strength out of it…
But with the right technique, that dipping motion can be used to make the lift more effective rather than less so (you wouldn’t really do a double dip on krocs though, more like reaching down and twisting back up while pulling the shoulders up… Double dip is used more on t-bars and generally heavy bar BO rows etc).
Sorry, that was longer than intended… [quote]
If you’re training for a deadlift, note that in competition most have some protraction at max weights. If you’re training for bodybuilding, some pretty big fellows recommend full protraction to get an extra bit of stretch in the muscle. [/quote] That’s a bit on the dangerous side for your average guy though… Less space for the bicep tendon crossing the shoulder etc. So just don’t overdo the protraction part… Some guys can get away with crazy shit (SLDL’s with a rounded lower back at the bottom and heavy weight for example) but most can’t.
For bbing, the rowing technique again depends on whether you do the rows as a backwidth exercise (stupid imo except in special cases like droop rows, and all rows ultimately use some lat when done with elbows tucked, but yeah… Rack Chins, Hammerstrength pulldowns and hs high “rows” are more effective than your average row , no matter how you do those, for backwidth) or as a backthickness thing… BT = same as you’d do them to aid your bench press in PL, and that’s also the way to balance your shoulder posture/health…
One can also use that retraction technique on rack pulls (and all kinds of deadlifts in general) for bbing, works much better for backthickness than just having slightly protracted shoulders and never pulling them back at the top… Just don’t do that with your 1-3RM… Not unless you’ve already built up your retractors etc via rows. [quote]
I find that if you just keep a neutral spine and pull with some power and it’s honestly pretty hard to mess up. [/quote]
Some people are naturals at getting movements right etc, but so many people seem to be “movement idiots” as some of our local researches call them… You get BB pro’s retracting their shoulder blades without thinking about it and having no idea that this helps keep their shoulders healthy, and you have guys who just lie down and bench and have their shoulders just hang there in the air or whatever and of course end up with some ugly pec tear (real common), separated ac joint, torn bicep tendon…
At least in powerlifting people usually learn about setup (at least on the big 3), but in BBing (I made a thread about this in the t-cell, gotta find some free time and write out some setup/technique instructions for some other lifts there) such instructions practically never go beyond “lie down on the bench, take grip outside shoulder width, bring bar down to chest, press back up” ← obvious and absolutely useless crap really.
Imo one of the top 2 reasons why so many guys get injured benching (etc) in the 200s, absolutely ridiculous when you think about it.
[quote]rasturai wrote:
I actually have another question with regard to that rowing…are you saying as well we keep our shoulder blades in that retracted position throughout the whole movement of rowing? (as in not letting shoulders stretch during end of eccentric portion)
Thanks![/quote]
You don’t need to let them stretch out big time, esp. if you have shoulder problems, but you want to train your retractors with some ROM…
Wow CC thank you for that post!
I have definately saved it on my computer. I am having a bit of a shoulder issue. I know KMC recommend some things and I have definately been doing the face pulls etc. but the scap pushups right now don’t make my shoulder feel too well so I am leaving those out.
CC if you don’t mind I’d like to take a video of me doing one arm rows and perhaps I can have your input?
Let me know so I can post it in this thread
Thanks :)!
Oops, forgot to mention that the retraction if done on deadlifts (you don’t have to pull your shoulders down much if at all there, obviously, compared to bench/rows) is done only after each lockout, not mid-deadlift 
Edit: Rasturai, have you talked to someone like bushidobadboy about your shoulder issues? Better if we knew what exactly was wrong before you embark on the “300x15” kroc row -quest and so that you can do the right kind of rehab/prehab work…
rasturai, you can post a vid yes… But it’s not necessarily easy to spot whether you’re doing it completely right… I should be able to tell whether you are using your arms too much etc and whether you get the shoulder movement right, but other than that, it’s hard to see some of the details via video.
Post it anyway though…