The Kinetic Chain Solution: Fixing Shoulder Pain by Training Smarter

It can be really difficult to both want to your fitness level and know that you have some aches and pains that keep popping up whenever you try to reach those goals. I’ve seen it even among many fitness professionals at our courses and that email me. One of the most common complaints I hear about is issues with the shoulders. Often people claim they have tried EVERYTHING but their shoulders still give them problems especially when it comes to going overhead. 

What can you do? Let’s explore a few keys. 

Don’t Isolate, Train The Kinetic Chain

For awhile it seemed like fitness and therapy were going in the right direction talking about training movement and chains of the body. However, with social media, people who “make sense” seem to get the most popular and their information becomes truth. More specifically, it makes sense to most people that if your shoulder hurts then you should train your shoulder and focus on different areas of your shoulder as much as possible. 

The issue is that we are not machines and we don’t just have parts that break down to replace. This isn’t just my opinion but backed by A LOT of science. For example…

“overhead athletes with trunk or lower limb pain appear to be two to five times more likely to also suffer from shoulder pain compared to those without pain in the kinetic chain.” (PMID: 39628781)

“poor trunk stability and endurance are associated with shoulder complaints.” (PMID: 36791672)

“This review aimed to investigate whether the addition of lower limb and trunk motion into shoulder exercises influenced EMG activity and recruitment patterns around the shoulder complex. Overall, the findings suggest that integrating the KC into shoulder exercises may enhance axioscapular muscle recruitment, produce lower trapezius muscle ratios and reduce the demands on the rotator cuff.” (PMID: 32405430)

Below are some great examples of how we integrate the lower body and core especially in pulling exercises to reflect how we can bring the science to life. 

 

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Increase Mobility To The Kinetic Chain

The kinetic chain concept doesn’t just apply to how we perform strength training. The same idea relates to how we should increase mobility of the shoulder complex as well. Once again, this is science, not just opinion. 

Research has shown that hip tightness can impair the function of the shoulder actually leading to injury (PMID: 33203930). The use of creating stability and a foundation from the feet and lower body can have a great impact on the shoulder. Quite a bit of research points to the impact of the lower body playing a large role in the function of the shoulders (PMID: 25540708, PMID: 16558646). So, our exercises should integrate from our feet up. 

Lastly, we should use diaphragmatic breathing techniques on certain exercises like I show below. Using our Myofascial Integrated Movement drills focusing on how we are integrating the body and breath can lead to much better results in our mobility efforts because we are combining myofascial release work, core stability, and nervous system regulation all at once. 

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t do these exercises once or twice and then you are all fix. You should work on making them a regular part of your strength and mobility training. The more you practice the more the nervous system responds to these drills and if we do so while making sure our training programs are also reflecting these ideas overall we can see some really impressive results. 

Save 35% on our very special combo training package putting all these ideas together with code “special35” HERE this week only!

 

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