Today I realized that I have been hurting my shoulders while lifting without even knowing it. I will share with you what I have been doing wrong and how properly hold your shoulders when pressing or squeezing your chest.
The chest muscles (especially on men) are one of the most over-trained muscles along with biceps and abs. This is because they are the most aesthetically pleasing to see so we build it a lot. On a lot of people I have worked with, they couldn't push themselves hard with some chest exercises (cable flys, bench press, and overhead press) because they were experiencing shoulder pain. Most of the time they said the shoulder pain was initially caused from something else, but why was the exercises hurting the joint when it's just a muscular contraction in the chest? My answer is improper form with the placement of the shoulders.
Fig. 1 Secret for a Huge Chest - Shoulder Packing by Scooby1961 on www.youtube.com.
I've been watching Scooby's videos on YouTube for a very long time and he explains a lot of things that people don't usually go into great detail about. In this video he explains why it is important when doing chest exercises to have your shoulders down and back. Also, I can't help but believe a man with that kind of chest development!
The wrong way:
It is very common for people to shrug their shoulders up when bench pressing. I used to do this too because I thought it targeted my upper pectoral, but instead it was just putting massive amounts of stress onto my shoulder joints.When your shoulders are shrugged and up by your ears, the pressure on your arm is pushing the ball of the joint out of the socket and straining all the tendons in the shoulders. And to top it all off, it doesn't even target the upper pectorals!
The right way:
The proper way to lock your shoulders when doing any chest exercise is down and back. Not only does this give you better leverage and increase your strength (as explained in Scooby's video with a model figure), but when your shoulders are down, the weight is not pushing your arm out of the socket, it is instead transferring the weight into your lats and and upper back, capable of handling much more weight than your shoulder joints. This also decreases the amount of movement that happens in the socket. It may feel a little weird at first, but pretty soon it will become second nature to keep your shoulders down and back while working the chest.
I hope this has saved some people from making the same mistake as I have. I've noticed that I am able to push my chest a lot further and feel a lot less tension in my shoulder during and after my isolated chest workouts. Just remember, down and back! Not only does it feel safer, more secure, and more isolated on the chest, but it also looks better!
Blog Question:
With many things, there is no "wrong" and "right", but when it comes to form, there is definitely "not good" and "best". When is a time you learned that you have been doing an exercise with different form than the exercise intended?
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