Month: April 2021

Do you have some wonky shoulders? Are you searching for some shoulder impingement exercises?

Well you have come to the right place.

Most people who sit at a desk all day or exercise are more likely to have shoulder issues (which you may find shocking because those are two opposite things!).

In this article I plan to give you some shoulder impingement exercises you can start doing today in order to improve your shoulder health.

I am going to try to break things down piece by piece so you can not only get the exercises you need to do but also understand why you are getting this pain in your shoulders.

This way you can not just do the exercises to help, but also understand why it happened to prevent it in the future.

This is working to fix the issue as opposed to just putting a bandaid over it.

That is why I ask you to make sure you don’t skip around this article and read it top to bottom. I want you to feel confident leaving this that you can truly take steps forward with your shoulder health.

Cool? Cool. Let’s dive in.

Shoulder Impingement Exercises

What Is Shoulder Impingement?

Before we dive into the exercises and how to fix it, let’s be sure you fully understand what shoulder impingement is.

Full disclaimer : I am not a physical therapist nor am I claiming to be one.

I am simply attempting to make this as simple and easy as I can for you to understand.

Shoulder impingement is essentially when your arm bones rubs viciously against the top edge of your shoulder.

There are muscles in between these two bones that get irritated and inflamed due to this pinching and rubbing.

This is what causes the pain in the front of your shoulder.

Before we cover the shoulder impingement exercises lets look at this a bit more in depth.

What Causes Shoulder Impingement?

You know now that your arm bone rubbing against the top of your shoulder is what is causing that pain.

Okay, so what is actually causing that?

Well, it is starting from your shoulder blade.

Your shoulder blade or scapula is the muscle that controls where your shoulder is positioned.

Tell me if you can relate to this position below.

You are sitting at a desk all day, typing away on your computer.

Notice how your shoulder blade is hiked up towards your ears and rounded forward?

This is what it looks like from a body perspective.

Again, notice how your shoulder blade is hiked up towards your ear?

This is the main driver of your shoulder pain.

If you remember what causes the pain it is the fact your arm bone is jamming against your shoulder bone.

When your shoulder blade is hiked up like this, you are not allowing for any room for your arm bone to move whether you are doing push ups, typing at your computer, shoulder presses, you name it.

So, How Do You Fix This?

This is quite actually the most important out of all the shoulder impingement exercises I am going to show you here in this article.

Before you go into any exercises for health, you must first learn how to “scoop your shoulder blade” under you to allow for more range of motion.

This looks like this below.

Compare this picture to the previous picture above where I showed you my shoulder blade hiked up towards my ear.

When you can control your shoulder blade to allow for more range of motion from your arm, this will cause less of the rubbing of the muscles against the two bones.

In turn, this will cause less pain. Yet without learning how to scoop your shoulder blade, your exercises are going to be futile and pain will continue to linger.

I would practice scooping your shoulder blade to learn what this feels like.

To do this get into a half kneeling position with your hands behind your back (this isn’t some weird thing, I promise).

I want you to push your elbow forward while keeping your hands behind your back.

This will push your shoulder blade up and forward, going into “bad posture”.

Then, pull your elbow back behind your body.

This will pull you into “good posture”.

See below.

I would look to practice this a few times throughout the day simply to get used to feeling where your shoulder blade is.

I cannot emphasize how important this is. These exercises we are about to do below won’t help anything if you cannot control your shoulder blades.

Shoulder Impingement Exercises : Top 4

Now that you have learned the importance of scooping your shoulder blade and how to do it, we can now move onto the exercises that might help you.

I am going to give you my top 4 shoulder impingement exercises I use with my 1:1 clients or Clubhouse members.

Band Pull Apart

The band pull apart is a staple in any healthy shoulder training regimen.

This exercise allows you to take your shoulder blades through a full range of motion while stabilizing them against resistance. This can strengthen your shoulder blades up fosho.

Sets: 2-3

Reps : 8-15

Prone T’s

Prone T’s are a staple I throw into any of my clients work. This can assure you are strengthening your upper back musculature with very low risk of injury.

Sets : 2-3

Reps : 6-12

TRX Y’s

Truth be told I had some serious shoulder impingement in my Younger years. This exercise right here helped me understand how to control and strengthen my shoulder blades more than anything other.

Sets : 2-3

Reps : 8-15

Snow Angels

The snow angel is a staple in any healthy shoulder routine as it forces you to keep your shoulder blade positioning through an entire range of motion, up and down.

Sets : 2-3

Reps : 6-12

Important Note!

These exercises are 4 of my favorite shoulder impingement exercises, no question about it.

Yet again, I will remind you, unless you can keep your shoulder blade controlled throughout the range of motion, these exercises will be useless.

If you are doing the band pull apart for example and your shoulder are rounded forward or shrugged up towards your ear, then you are not getting any benefit out of the exercise.

You are actually probably just making things worse.

These movements should be done in a slow, methodical fashion.

You should really take your time to be diligent about moving through them with 100% total control of your shoulder blades.

If you cannot do that, then decrease reps or decrease the resistance.

Also there can be a few times of when you can perform these exercises.

A few options are below.

• before every upper body workout
• Every morning when you wake up
• 2-4x Throughout the day if you work out a desk
• In between sets of push ups, shoulder presses, chest presses, etc

Again, these are the staple of shoulder health, so you really can’t go wrong.

I would just caution you to not over do it. Meaning these movements again should be done with complete control.

If you are doing sets of 20 30 reps 10 times a day, you are going to over do it and not get the benefit.

Putting It In Action For A Push Up

Let’s take the push up as an example.

One of the most common exercises for people to get shoulder impingement on.

Here is what a “bad” push up may look like.

Now this is what a proper push up should look like.

My shoulder blades are scooped under, allow for proper range of motion for my arm bone to move freely through my shoulder joint.

Shoulder Impingement Exercises : Learn Something?

That was the low down on shoulder impingement exercises.

This is such a common issue amongst desk workers or avid exercisers alike.

I hope you were able to take something from this article and implement it into your daily routine.

If you have any questions you can drop them below.

Hope this helped and happy shoulder-ing.

-E

The Bulgarian split squat is one of the staple movements I put into damn near every single one of my online coaching clients or Clubhouse members programs .

Why? Because in my professional opinion it is one of the best, if not the best, lower body exercise you can do.

Also, anything with bulgarian attached to it screams strength.

Want better glutes? Do the bulgarian split squat.

Want a stronger deadlift or squat? Do the bulgarian split squat.

Want to be able to have super powers? Hell, I am sure the Bulgarian split squat can give you some.

No doubt this movement will have you seeing all types of progress in your lower body strength and definition.

Let’s dive into it more below.

The Bulgarian Split Squat : 3 Mistakes You Never Want To Make

Bulgarian Split Squat Mistake #1 – Have Torso Upright

From high school gyms across the country to even personal trainers in gyms today you may have heard “Keep your chest up!” When doing really any movement.

Which I believe is one of the most over used and under effective coaching cues that has ever been created. That is a different conversation for a different day though, bulgarian split squats today.

Well this is one movement you should NOT be having your chest up for.

Why?

Well for starters it can bring on some serious knee pain. The more upright your torso is, the more pressure you are going to put on your knees.

If you are trying to keep your chest upright and experiencing some knee pain, you can pretty much be assured some knee pain is going to come along with that.

Also, if you are looking to work your glutes, keeping your chest up is the worst thing you can do.

Not only will you keeping your chest up usually bring upon some knee pain, it will also recruit more quadriceps than glutes.

The more upright your torso is the more forward knee travel you will have to have.

The more forward knee travel the more pressure you put on your knee and more quad you work.

So, what’s the fix?

Keep a slight lean forward in your torso and think about going down and back as opposed to straight down and forward.

This will make sure you maintain a vertical shin angle which will take pressure off of your knee and recruit more glute muscles.

Bulgarian Split Squat Mistake #2 – Heels Coming Off Ground

The second most common mistake for the bulgarian split squat is having your heels coming off the ground as you descend down into the movement.

This can be due to a few things.

Number one is you are making the mistake above of trying to keep your torso upright. If you do not have the adequate ankle mobility, you will be forced to have your heels come off the ground to complete the movement.

This is once again a big no no for your knees.

Number two is your foot is too close to the bench.

So, What’s The Fix?

The first thing you need to make sure of is your foot stays flat on the ground the entire time.

Try to push through your mid foot / heel as opposed to your toes.

The second thing is to make sure your foot is out far enough in front of you.

What I normally recommend doing if you are struggling with this is starting from the bottom and work your way back up.

So get to the bottom where your back knee is on the ground, find a comfortable spot where your front foot is flat on the ground, and begin your movement from there.

Bulgarian Split Squat Mistake #3 – Knee Caving In

The third mistake is your knee is coming in as you descend down into the movement.

This is a big risk to knee pain as well as hip pain.

So, What’s The Fix?

You want to make sure your knee is out and in line over your 2nd or 3rd toe.

If you have to get a wider stance with your feet to make this happen you absolutely can.

This means when you are setting up if your right leg is forward and left leg is back, move your right leg out to the right side a bit more.

This usually allows for a wider base which leads to your knee staying out a bit more.

Another tip you can do is have someone, or yourself, put your hand on the inside of your knee.

I use to do this all the time with the clients I trained in person.

If you simply just put your hand on the inside of your knee you automatically will be aware of where your knee is traveling. This will allow you to keep your knee out on the way down.

Now that you are aware of the 3 most common mistakes and how to fix them, let’s cover 3 of my favorite bulgarian split squat variations (as if it wasn’t hard enough as it is!).

3 Killer Bulgarian Split Squat Variations

1.5 Bulgarian Split Squat

Description: Do a standard bulgarian split squat but add a half rep in between every full rep. Go down, 1/2 way up, back down, all the way up. That is ONE rep.

2. Deficit BGSS

Description: Do a standard bulgarian split squat here but elevate your front foot to a 2-4’ surface. This is going to allow more a bigger range of motion and challenge your muscles that much more.

3. Front Rack BGSS

Description: Perform a standard BGSS with either dumbbells or kettlebells held in a front rack position. This will challenge your core strength as well as lower body strength.. Fun, right?!

Bulgarian Split Squat Wrap Up

You ready to tackle the bulgarian split squat now?

Full disclosure : this exercise is not for the weak hearted. It is tough no matter if you are a beginner or seasoned vet.

If you want some free workouts with the Bulgarian split squat programmed in, scroll to the bottom of this page to get your hands on 52 free workouts.

If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to reach out or drop them below.

Talk soon,

-E