Rounded Shoulders

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

Hey. I 've been working out for about 6 years. I was diagnosed with scoliosis and that was my incentive to start working out. I always had bad posture because of the scoliosis. I have rounded shoulders, a weak core, and my butt sticks out.

My traps, lower back and shoulders always took over every exercise. My traps take over every pull exercise. And my shoulders would take over every push exercise. I developed a very large upper back and shoulders. My chest is very underdeveloped compared to the rest of my body.

I am 150 lbs, my max squat is around 380, my deadlift max is around 390, and my bench press max is around 200.

Now obviously I credit the size and strength difference to my rounded shoulders and poor posture. Now I’ve read all over about rounded shoulders being the result of weak back muscles and a tight chest. But it doesn’t make sense to me because I have a very strong back and a weak chest.

Does anyone know what the deal is? Also, I must admit that every though I have a strong back, my back muscles are very tight… I have alot of back pain/discomfort.

2

…how tall are you?

pictures?

3

Well, if you’re 150lbs…and you’re squatting 380 and deadlifting 390, perhaps you should be giving the tips here.

4

[quote]Standard Donkey wrote:
…how tall are you?

pictures?[/quote]

5’6 … I can get pictures tommorrow.

5

[quote]The Bambino wrote:
Well, if you’re 150lbs…and you’re squatting 380 and deadlifting 390, perhaps you should be giving the tips here. [/quote]

Haha… If I had any, I’d share. I guess just genetics.

6

Well, you can’t assume something isn’t tight just because it’s weak. And if you’re using a lot of lower back and upper traps when you pull (be it deadlifting or rowing), you can be strong as hell and have terrible posture.

It wasn’t until I learned how to recruit my lower traps and glutes that my posture started to get better. Not to mention consciously reinforcing good posture outside of the gym.

7

[quote]wfifer wrote:
Well, you can’t assume something isn’t tight just because it’s weak. And if you’re using a lot of lower back and upper traps when you pull (be it deadlifting or rowing), you can be strong as hell and have terrible posture.

It wasn’t until I learned how to recruit my lower traps and glutes that my posture started to get better. Not to mention consciously reinforcing good posture outside of the gym. [/quote]

Yeah, I see what you’re saying. I guess what I don’t fully understand is what plays a bigger role in posture… strength or tightness. Like if my back is strong, shouldn’t it be pulling back my shoulder blades?

8

[quote]abckid24 wrote:
wfifer wrote:
Well, you can’t assume something isn’t tight just because it’s weak. And if you’re using a lot of lower back and upper traps when you pull (be it deadlifting or rowing), you can be strong as hell and have terrible posture.

It wasn’t until I learned how to recruit my lower traps and glutes that my posture started to get better. Not to mention consciously reinforcing good posture outside of the gym.

Yeah, I see what you’re saying. I guess what I don’t fully understand is what plays a bigger role in posture… strength or tightness. Like if my back is strong, shouldn’t it be pulling back my shoulder blades?[/quote]

It depends.

The “back” is made up of a lot of different muscles, and those muscles often pull/perform movement in different planes of motion. For instance the upper traps pull the shoulder blades up towards the ears, or extend the cervical spine (neck).

The middle and lower traps retract (pull back) the shoulder blades, and the lower traps also pull the shoulder blades down.

So, unless you are also doing exercises that force you to pull your shoulder blades back (and possibly down) you aren’t really working the traps in the way that will help to improve your posture.

Try some horizontal shrugs if you want an exercise to isolate that movement specifically.

You might also have very tight pecs, so you can stretch them, and possibly do some soft tissue work on them (ART, rolling with a tennis ball/lacrosse ball, myofascial release, etc…) to help with that.

9

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
abckid24 wrote:
wfifer wrote:
Well, you can’t assume something isn’t tight just because it’s weak. And if you’re using a lot of lower back and upper traps when you pull (be it deadlifting or rowing), you can be strong as hell and have terrible posture.

It wasn’t until I learned how to recruit my lower traps and glutes that my posture started to get better. Not to mention consciously reinforcing good posture outside of the gym.

Yeah, I see what you’re saying. I guess what I don’t fully understand is what plays a bigger role in posture… strength or tightness. Like if my back is strong, shouldn’t it be pulling back my shoulder blades?

It depends.

The “back” is made up of a lot of different muscles, and those muscles often pull/perform movement in different planes of motion. For instance the upper traps pull the shoulder blades up towards the ears, or extend the cervical spine (neck).

The middle and lower traps retract (pull back) the shoulder blades, and the lower traps also pull the shoulder blades down.

So, unless you are also doing exercises that force you to pull your shoulder blades back (and possibly down) you aren’t really working the traps in the way that will help to improve your posture.

Try some horizontal shrugs if you want an exercise to isolate that movement specifically.

You might also have very tight pecs, so you can stretch them, and possibly do some soft tissue work on them (ART, rolling with a tennis ball/lacrosse ball, myofascial release, etc…) to help with that.[/quote]

Thanks alot for the help. It makes more sense to me now that you broke down the movements and their corresponding parts of the back. I have been doing full body workouts for a while and most of my back work consisted of mainly the deadlift and not enough horizontal pulls/shrugs.

10

[quote]abckid24 wrote:
Sentoguy wrote:
abckid24 wrote:
wfifer wrote:
Well, you can’t assume something isn’t tight just because it’s weak. And if you’re using a lot of lower back and upper traps when you pull (be it deadlifting or rowing), you can be strong as hell and have terrible posture.

It wasn’t until I learned how to recruit my lower traps and glutes that my posture started to get better. Not to mention consciously reinforcing good posture outside of the gym.

Yeah, I see what you’re saying. I guess what I don’t fully understand is what plays a bigger role in posture… strength or tightness. Like if my back is strong, shouldn’t it be pulling back my shoulder blades?

It depends.

The “back” is made up of a lot of different muscles, and those muscles often pull/perform movement in different planes of motion. For instance the upper traps pull the shoulder blades up towards the ears, or extend the cervical spine (neck).

The middle and lower traps retract (pull back) the shoulder blades, and the lower traps also pull the shoulder blades down.

So, unless you are also doing exercises that force you to pull your shoulder blades back (and possibly down) you aren’t really working the traps in the way that will help to improve your posture.

Try some horizontal shrugs if you want an exercise to isolate that movement specifically.

You might also have very tight pecs, so you can stretch them, and possibly do some soft tissue work on them (ART, rolling with a tennis ball/lacrosse ball, myofascial release, etc…) to help with that.

Thanks alot for the help. It makes more sense to me now that you broke down the movements and their corresponding parts of the back. I have been doing full body workouts for a while and most of my back work consisted of mainly the deadlift and not enough horizontal pulls/shrugs.[/quote]

Well, just to make sure you understood what I meant I am not talking about the type of shrugs where you stand with two DB’s in your hands and try to bring your shoulders up to your ears. Those will work the upper traps, and won’t help you.

I am talking about a variation of shrugs where you lay face down on an incline bench, holding two DB’s in your hands. Then you bring your shoulder blades back (basically trying to touch them together behind you). This will work the part of the back that you need to strengthen. Alternatively you could use any rowing machin (or seated cable rows) and do scapular retractions with weight (pulling the shoulder blades back).

This article has a picture of the shrug variation that I’m talking about. The pictures are titled “chest supported incline shrug”. You can also change the angle of the bench to hit the scapular retractors from different angles.

http://www.T-Nation.com/article/bodybuilding/most_powerful_program_ever&cr=

11

Tightness in the pecs results in the back having to work all the time to counter that force. Oddly enough, even though the back is stronger, it may be the one feeling muscular pain and tightness even though the chest is working relatively harder at this near-constant contraction and is in fact tighter - while for some reason not resulting in a feel or pain problem there.

Actually I tend that way myself and both before training and after the one long layoff that I ever did had severely forward shoulders.

It takes dedicated ongoing effort to getting the shoulders back when the pecs are tight and shortened, but it’s doable. Stretching the pecs is helpful but being conscious of posture and just on an ongoing basis endeavouring to keep the shoulders back is also key.