Learn 5 tips on keeping your shoulders healthier for longer [Videos]

May 22, 2015 9:10 PM

If you want to exercise regularly and keep your shoulders healthy for the long haul, you might want to try these tips out for yourself.

Exercises for healthy shoulders

We normally take most parts of our body for granted, that is until that part fails you, before you realise just how much mess you may have gotten yourself into.

The shoulders are one of those much neglected parts.

So here are five tips to packaging your shoulders for the long haul. Read and then watch the videos for the break down.

These are quick and easy adjustments to make, so don’t delay in putting them into action.

Land-mine presses

Bench presses are good enough. it’s one of the best compound exercises you can possibly do. Unfortunately, when your upper back is always pinned to a bench, your shoulder blades can’t move freely so they may lose the ability to get overhead pain-free.

With that in mind, it’s important to complement your bench press variations with other movements where the shoulder blade can move freely.

All push-up variations are great choices, but you might also like to try land-mine presses. You can do these standing or kneeling. Perform once a week on an upper body day. See how in video.

Rotator cuff training

Doing rotator cuff exercises is like cleaning your gutters; it’s not sexy or fun, but you need to do it or else bad things will happen. Believe it or not, one study showed that 34 percent of people with absolutely no shoulder pain actually have rotator cuff tears and this number is actually 54 percent in those over the age of 60!

In other words, just because you don’t have pain doesn’t mean that there isn’t have something wrong. It may just be waiting to reach a painful symptomatic threshold!

With that in mind, train the rotator cuff with some external rotations, even if it’s just once a week for three sets. Perform twice per week on upper body days:

Back to wall shoulder flexion exercises

This is not just a training exercise; it’s also an assessment. If you can’t get your arms overhead without compensating at your lower back or winding up in pain then it’s a sign that you’ve really lost an important movement pattern. Watch the video, and practice this daily in warm-ups!

Common shoulder exercise mistakes

We all know that it’s important to do just as much pulling as you do pushing. However, what a lot of people fail to realize is that you only get the benefits of all these rowing exercises if you actually perform them correctly! Check out the standing 1-arm cable row with all its variations. Perform twice a week on upper body days.

Supine alternated shoulder flexion

There are loads of people out there who are acquiring a “Quasimodo” posture because of always being in a rounded upper back position. The good news is that there are two exercises for you to help address the issue: Supine Alternated Shoulder Flexion on a Tennis Ball, and the Side-Lying Windmill. Perform these daily during warm-ups.

Think you can handle it? Why not get started today?

Watch the video on the side-lying windmill for more.

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