Stop THESE 3 Shoulder Workout Mistakes

Jessica Bento, Physical Therapist (Creator DVRT Restoration Certification, DVRT Rx Shoulder, Knees, Pelvic Control, & Gait Courses)

Pain…it stinks!!! That is why this past Tuesday Josh and I were so happy to lead our Client In Pain webinar (you can watch it HERE if you missed it). With so many people struggling with all sorts of pain issues, it literally is my motivation as a physical therapist to help people really understand their pain and how to use evidence based strategies to improve it. I’ll be honest, it can be REALLY difficult because a lot of people attribute where they have pain as the cause of the issue in the first place. Shoulder pain is a great example of this and that is why creating a shoulder workout to both strengthen and improve the health of your shoulders you need to avoid these mistakes!

The Shoulder May Be The Symptom Not The Cause

If you look around on the internet you will hear most people tell you that your shoulder workout needs to focus on training the rotator cuff, maybe the serrates anterior, how your scapula is way off and so forth. Your shoulder can absolutely appear weak if you are in pain, but that doesn’t mean weakness was the reason that the shoulder became injured.

Lots of research shows that the whole body, especially the lower body and the core influences what happens at the shoulder (PMID: 32405430, PMID: 16558646, PMID: 39725018). Trying to isolate these muscles in your shoulder workout could be not only the VERY long way to try to help the strength and pain levels of the shoulder, but doesn’t solve the underlying causes that resulted in the problem in the first place.e This means avoiding a lot of those common shoulder exercises where you take out the lower body and core are absolutely necessary to avoid in your shoulder workout.

 

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Don’t Rely On Just Linear Movements

A lot of people think of a shoulder workout for pain as one that not only isolates a lot of muscles, but also tends to use more linear patterns. The shoulder is actually a very complex joint, especially when you add the scapula into the equation. The large freedom of movement the shoulder is suppose to have means looking beyond a lot of linear movements are essential in building health, stability, strength, and mobility.

Research actually supports a lot of these concepts of circular and diagonal patterns in being more effective than more traditional strategies in restoring function, improving strength, and decreasing pain (PMID: 35500978, PMID: 35443651, PMID: 29086753). Most people aren’t as familiar with these patterns which is very unfortunate because their benefits aren’t just for the shoulder. As we just discussed in building better shoulder workout programs, working the whole body increases our benefits as I show and explain below…

 

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Too Much Tension!

We do teach a lot of how to use tension in our DVRT system, especially grip when it comes to shoulder workout drills. That is because the grip is correlate to better shoulder strength and health. However, done excessively, out of balance with other strategies, or those that have high levels of pain can be problematic. Everything needs to be done in balance, this is even more important if people have fear of using their shoulders due to past pain experiences.

One of the most difficult things for people in pain to do is reduce the tension they hold. The stress, the pain, the worry, all causes their body to tighten and this has been shown to prolong the pain process. Leaning to “soften” the body in more integrated movements can be very powerful. We see how important using breath work, mindfulness, and integrated movement can be in helping reduce pain sensations and improving shoulder function (PMID: 34249134, PMID: 35368768, PMID: 38541838). Starting on some key cues, going slow, and putting people in environments that don’t cause fear or the need to create a lot of tension are really key as Josh shows below…

These are only three of many things we could discuss, but they have great power in what they can do to help people with in their shoulder workout programs. Whether that is stability, mobility, strength, performance or reducing pain. If you want to go even into a deeper dive, join us for our 6-week online chronic pain CEU masterclass. Save 15% till April 1st with code “pain” HERE