Hey guys, do you think it is highly important work the shoulder from all angles:
Doesn’t nature show that we push way more often than we pull?
Do you think that a balnced-out shoulder development (as indicated above) really helps you and prevents injury or is the talk about balance, rotator cuffs, etc. overrated?
Thanks.
What “nature” are you referring to?
Shoulder balance is not overrated at all. Maintaining balance and paying special attention to the smaller and more fragile parts of your shoulder is extremely important, not doing so will comeback to haunt you, it is only a matter of time.
[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
Shoulder balance is not overrated at all. Maintaining balance and paying special attention to the smaller and more fragile parts of your shoulder is extremely important, not doing so will comeback to haunt you, it is only a matter of time.[/quote]
This
< living proof of unbalanced, excessive pushing, shoulder problems
[quote]ucallthatbass wrote:
[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
Shoulder balance is not overrated at all. Maintaining balance and paying special attention to the smaller and more fragile parts of your shoulder is extremely important, not doing so will comeback to haunt you, it is only a matter of time.[/quote]
This
< living proof of unbalanced, excessive pushing, shoulder problems[/quote]
thirded. Do your scapular depression and retraction work, rotator cuff work, and balance push/pull etc as you listed above. It’s the price you pay, for not being injured.
i think you are wrong mate… we naturally pull more than we push! the natural way to push a heavy object is to put the arms over head, iso contract the delt, lockout the tri and use the legs! so the focus should be on pulling. aim for 10% more strength on pulling exercises than their respective opposites.
[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
Shoulder balance is not overrated at all. Maintaining balance and paying special attention to the smaller and more fragile parts of your shoulder is extremely important, not doing so will comeback to haunt you, it is only a matter of time.[/quote]
ACK.
Not having trained my shoulder in a balanced way for a long time led to me subluxating it (fatigue set in much sooner than I expected while OH db pressing). That shit took me out of commission for way too long and I’m still not sure if I’ll get away without surgery.
Ancillary exercises are a must for certain muscle groups, especially if one doesn’t have his exercise programming and execution down pat - according to one’s own biomechanics.
IMO it depends on how you look at it.
When you try to balance your training so your MOVEMENTS are equal and opposite (I.e, push/pull) it doesn’t help at all.
When you balance your training to make sure each MUSCLE group is as developed (relatively) to everything else, then that helps tremendously.
I had shoulder problems for over a year, I followed all this bullshit of having equal and opposite movements so I would be ‘balanced’ and it didn’t help at all.
Only when I stopped caring and focused on hitting each muscle group as hard as I could, so they grew equally, then the problems started to go away.
Like other posters have said, you won’t think rotator cuff work is a waste of time until you get an injury and have to rebuild your bench press from scratch. It’s taken me months to get back to a reasonable bench after a shoulder problem.
[quote]Rational Gaze wrote:
Like other posters have said, you won’t think rotator cuff work is a waste of time until you get an injury and have to rebuild your bench press from scratch. It’s taken me months to get back to a reasonable bench after a shoulder problem.[/quote]
Same experience here.
My shoulder surgery involving 3 different procedures tells me that shoulder balance is important.