How to Fix Beat Up Shoulders

Ten years of powerlifting will beat up even the most advanced athletes. I know this well because I lived it, week in and week out throughout my early to late twenties.

Max effort, dynamic effort and strongman. That was my typical week.

I would get to the gym after an eight hour work day of manual labor, do a few cross the body shoulder stretches and toe touches and I was off to the races.

When your twenty, you're invincible, when your twenty-six, you start to question a few things, when you're thirty, you know you fucked up.

Yup, I fucked up.

It had nothing to do with the exercise selection I choose to do or how I trained as most people would think.

It had everything to do with the irresponsible actions I let myself get away with every time I walked in the gym.

A half assed warm up, no mobility work, tons of pressing and a lack of pulling. Quad dominant and glutes that were sleeping.

Imbalances that were never addressed, aches and pains.

But I had to keep going. I had to get my bench to 315 and deadlift to over 6. But not only did I have to do it, I had to do it now.

Week in a week out, I went as hard as I could. No recovery weeks, rest days, soft tissue or mobility work. Three knee surgeries, a torn labrum, elbow and back pain.

Fast forward ten years and its all behind me. Now don't get me wrong, I love nothing more than to train with heavy weights. So much, Im thinking of possibly competing again.

But this time around is different.

Warm ups are quite extensive these days. Not because I'm in any sort of pain, but actually due to the fact that I feel great and pain free from head to toe.

Every session I start out with about ten minutes of foam rolling followed up by a short list of mobility exercises to get the joints nice and lubricated.

Each session is than started out with multiple sets of low impact bodyweight movements involving pushups, inverted or TRX rows, bodyweight squats and dynamic hip flexion.

For ten plus years, I always programmed my max effort work first in my workout. Makes sense right? Do the hardest lift first where you want to move the most amount of weight, when you are the strongest right?

That’s one regret I can never get back.

These days I like to program my max effort exercises later in my workouts. This could mean my second set of exercises, third or even fourth.

By doing low impact movements like the ones mentioned above, it allows the body to get completely acclimated to what is about to take place. Warming up the joints, tendons, ligaments and muscles. Without getting to scientific here is a short list to help you get started

1. Target your Warm Up

Focus on which of your muscles don’t fire properly and what drills you can do to help activate these muscle groups.

Add these to your warmup:

Shoulder Dislocations

Prone Y Raises

Band Pull Aparts

Cat Camels

Bird Dogs

Butterfly Glute Bridges

Doing exercises like these and other similar drills can help strengthen the rhomboids, traps and glutes. Those muscle groups are often left under-worked and can lead to worse imbalances throughout the body, not to mention a significant lack of strength in the surrounding muscle groups which can lead to injury over time

2. Do more pulling exercises than pushing.

Make sure that when you are programming you are going with more rowing movements than pushing. As good as chin-ups can be for the lats

they also put your shoulders through the motion of internal rotation and can be extremely tough on the elbows. This will destroy your shoulders over time especially if you have pre-existing injuries.

Horizontal rowing movements should be a major part of your training program to keep the shoulders healthy and the lats strong.

3. Train That Upper Back

The upper back muscles are the foundation for a strong press. If it is weak, then you will always struggle to keep your shoulders in a safe, strong position.

In my brick and mortar location, face pulls, band pull aparts, steep incline rows, shrugs and rack deadlifts are a staple in our programming.

4. Use Perfect Technique when you train

This goes back to learning from my mistakes when I was younger. When performing any horizontal press such as bench, inclines, floor, dumbbells, always keep the upper back extremely tight and the shoulder blades pinned together. Never overextend on any press bringing the shoulders out of position.

5. Leave some on the the table

This is the number one thing most important thing I have learned over the last twenty years to stay healthy and skyrocket your strength gains.

Most people should never be going to failure but unfortunately almost everyone does. That is an article for another day though. But trust me when I tell you a 315 bench verse a 330 bench over the course of 40 years of training will not make the slightest difference in how you look or feel about yourself.

So slow down, be smart and take care of those shoulders.