There are many muscles located in the upper back region and I believe the Rhomboid muscles (major and minor) are the main culprits of much of this tightness.  In the picture (from Wikipedia) to the right, the rhomboid major muscle is highlighted in red.  The rhomboid minor lies just above it.  When these muscles get tight it is very difficult for many individuals to get a good stretch on those muscles.

Manual stretching in my opinion is by far the most effective method of stretching these muscles.  I want to point out here that you will be also stretching other muscles in the area as well, I just think the rhomboid muscles many times are the major problem.

There are various methods of positioning the body to perform this stretch.  Since I am usually in a weight room with the athletes, I am going to explain how to do it standing since I will not have a nice treatment table to have them lay down on and a weight room bench is not wide enough for the position they would need to be in (face down).

First, be very direct with your athlete and explain to them what the stretch is and how it will potentially help them.  If you already watched the video, you saw that this is very hands on and someone may not be comfortable with you pushing your fingers behind their scapula.  After the athlete verbally tells you they would like to have the stretch done, explain to the them that if the feel light-headed at any time to let you know.  An athlete might feel faint when you are doing the stretch and they are thinking about what you are actually doing.  In the 12+ years that I have been performing this stretch on athletes, this has happened only one time.

After you have completely explained how the stretch is done, tell the athlete to relax as he/she is standing there.  This is why a treatment table makes this stretch a little easier to perform because the athlete can lay down.  I will lightly tap the area where the rhomboid muscles are located.  This will help to relax the musculature in that area.

Locate the bottom point of the scapula.  You may have to poke around a little if you have a thicker athlete.  After you have located the bottom point, run your fingers up the backside of the bone until your pinky finger is just above the bottom point (refer back to the video for a visual explanation).  Keep your fingers straight and lay them flat against the back.  The back of your hand and wrist will be towards the spine.  Now take your other hand and place it on the front portion of the shoulder.  With this hand you will push the shoulder back and this will raise the scapula slightly allowing you to push your fingers under the scapula.  As your fingers start to go behind the scapula, continue to push on the front of the shoulder.  This will increase how deep you will be able to get your fingers allowing for a better stretch.  Hold it in that position for a few seconds.  Sometimes you will actually feel the muscles relax as you are holding the stretch.  The scapula is a “floating” bone and is attached and positioned by muscles so you do not have to worry about dislocating anything.

Keep in constant communication with your athlete as you take pressure off the front shoulder and remove your back fingers.  Slide your fingers further up the scapula towards the neck.  Tap the area again to help relax the muscles.  Perform the stretch again in this location.  You will find this to be a little more difficult and tighter.  If it is the first time the athlete is having the stretch done, it may be difficult for them to relax so you may have to make a few attempts.

After you have completed the stretch, perform it on the other side as well.  Then have the athlete move their arms around and ask them how they feel.  The expression typically on their face will be priceless as they can not believe how much better they feel.  I am warning you now that once you do this stretch on someone, they will become a pain in your butt!  The stretch is so effective that the athlete will continue to come back to you every couple of days and ask for it again and again.  In the video, I explain how this stretch can be done with a tennis or lacrosse ball.  I typically show an athlete at this point how to do it with a ball now that they understand and have felt the stretch.

This is a great stretch to increase range of motion and scapular mobility but do not abuse this stretch.  I typically will only stretch the area once in each position.  Mobility in the scapula is a good thing but hypermobility (rarely ever seen) is not and is usually found in athletes with muscle imbalances.  Understand what you are dealing with and then you can make a good and sound judgement on how to fix it.

Hope that helps!

To your health,

Jerry

As the Head Strength & Conditioning Coach at Bucknell University, I work with a number of athletes, and part of my job is to help them remain injury free. To accomplish this, we use a series of Functional Injury Prevention Exercises. These exercises are commonly referred to by my athletes as the F.I.P. (Functional Injury Prevention) and are performed directly after their warm-up and before the core of our weight-training program.

In this article, let’s focus on the shoulder complex, particularly the rotator cuff. The rotator cuff is made up of four muscles and tendons (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, subscapularis, and teres minor), which stabilize the shoulder joint. When strengthening these muscles, heavy weight and/or excessive resistance are not required. In fact, too much resistance calls in the bigger muscles that surround the shoulder joint and takes the focus off of these smaller rotator cuff muscles. Defeating the purpose. So I like training these muscles using tubing and/or light five to ten pound weights.

Some of the most common exercises are internal and external shoulder rotation. Internal rotation involves keeping the elbow close to your side, bent at 90 degrees and then rotating your arm toward your body. External rotation is just the opposite: you rotate your arm away from your body. See the photos below for examples of internal and external rotation exercises using tubing.

Internal Rotation

External Rotation

Internal and external rotation exercises are a good start for shoulder health for the common person, but athletes tend to require a more complex circuit in my opinion.

A friend of mine, Mike Winn (Physical Therapist from Evangelical Sports Medicine Center, Lewisburg, PA), developed a shoulder circuit I use with my athletes almost weekly. I believe this circuit has increased the integrity of our athletes’ shoulder strength and has helped decrease the amount of overuse injuries associated with many sports. This circuit is a series of five exercises using rubber elastic tubing.

The first exercise is “Thumbs Out.” This is done with one tube held at arms length with your palms up. To begin, start with your arms parallel to the floor and your thumbs pointing out. Then horizontally pull your arms out to your sides as you retract (pinch) your shoulder blades together and return back to the start position under control.

The second exercise is “Thumbs Up.” Grab a second tube and secure each tube under your feet, so you will be holding one in each hand. Bring your arms forward about 30 degrees. With your thumbs pointing up, raise your arms up until they are parallel with the floor.

The third exercise is “Thumbs Down.” It is the same movement as Thumbs Up but you will switch your grip with the bands, so your thumbs will be pointing down when the arms are parallel to the floor.

The fourth exercise is “High Rotation.” You will start in the same position as Thumbs Down. Then raise your elbows high like an upright row. When your upper arms are parallel to the floor, externally rotate from the shoulder until your forearms are perpendicular to the floor. Return to the starting position in reverse order under control.

The fifth and final exercise is “High Diagonals.” In the Thumbs Down starting position, keep the bands under your feet but switch the bands into your opposite hands. Then cross your arms so your thumbs are pointing into your hips. Extend your arms out away from your body and externally rotate the shoulder as you raise your arms across your body and out above your shoulders. Reverse the order in a controlled manner to restart for the desired number of reps.

I typically have my athletes perform this complex shoulder circuit once or twice a week as part of their Functional Injury Prevention series of exercises. They will perform one to two sets of 10 to 12 controlled reps. For these exercises to be helpful in preventing injuries, the techniques of each exercise must be mastered. I can’t stress this enough.

What you will find when you try this circuit is that each exercise has an elemant of external rotation in the shoulder.  Most of this circuit (as stated above) was developed by Mike Winn, a physical therapist and good friend of mine.  He and I both believe that most athletes need to focus more on the external rotators of the shoulder and spend less time training the internal rotators.  There are so many internal movements in sports that most athlete’s internal rotators are strong enough or in relationship to the external rotators, over developed.  Also, the external roators act as decelerating muscles to help protect the shoulder from throwing movements.

If you are not currently doing any type of rotator cuff training, I would strongly encourage you start.  They work, plain and simple!

Hope that helps.

To your health,

Jerry

I personally have not trained much with indian clubs and I do not know all the techniques and swings that can be done with them.  The more I have been doing and learning about them; the more I am liking them.

Probably the biggest problem I have with them is the cost.  They are very expensive and I just could not justify the cost to buy a pair.  So I made myself some!

I went to Wal-mart and looked through the kids toys section and found these small hard plastic bats that were covered in this spongy foam; but they seemed to be the perfect size I was looking for.  They were only $5.00 each and I figured what do I have to loose.  If they don’t work out, then my kids just got two new bats to play with.

What I did was; I drilled a semi-small hole in the end of the bat at the handle.  The hole was just big enough to sift sand down into the bat.  I filled the bat up with sand until I had about 1.5-2 inches until it would have been filled.  I the took “Great Stuff” gap/insulation filler and sprayed it into the end of the bat.  This stuff IS “great”.  It expands to fill in all the gaps; this way the sand will not be able to leave the bat through the hole and make a mess.  I let the stuff dry over night and the next day I was swinging.

The bats work great.  To be honest, better than I thought they would.  Now I have to learn more about all the different movements that are involved in training with them.  I feel great working with them; especially in my shoulders.

I would recommend making a pair of them for yourself and give them a try.  They may not be for everybody, but you should not knock it until you try it.  If you make a pair; let me know what you think of them.  So far for me they have been a positive addition to my training tools.

Hope that helps!

To your health,

Jerry

I was impressed by the increased range of motion and how well my shoulders felt after I went through the stretches. I remember thinking that these positions are the exact positions an Athletic Trainer or Physical Therapist would place the shoulder in when doing manual stretching. Wow, here is a simple tool that you can use and not have to see someone for increasing range of motion. This can be very valuable to an athlete, especially if he or she was traveling to a sporting event and the trainer was not with them. Or for a trainer or therapist to free up time doing other things while their patient did their own manual stretching.

The Rotater also comes with a theratubing handle for easy attachments to perform strengthening exercises for the internal and external rotators of the shoulders. Although it works well and you can vary the degrees of tension; I would not base my decision to purchase this based on this component alone. I would however include the strengthening tubing as a good addition. For an athlete this attachment could easily serve as a positive tool to warm-up the shoulder and prehab it to keep it healthy.

To conclude, I can see how the Rotater could be a very useful tool for athletic teams or certain individual athletes. You can find out more information about this training tool at www.therotater.com .

To your health,
Jerry

PS-I would like to thank Chris Melton for the opportunity to learn more about the Rotater to enable me to provide you with this product review.

I had never really tried to bend steel before that and I have to admit, I think I’m hooked.  It was awesome to feel it start to go but it was by far not an easy thing to do.  The amount of tension and strength that is used throughout the entire body just to get it to bend was amazing.   It is in itself a workout.  I felt my muscles pumping full of blood.  Just like that “pumped up” feeling you get if you rep out bicep curls or dips.

I wanted to learn more so I got Jedd’s Nail Bending ebook and quickly realized that I did not know that much about it at all.  What I did quickly learn that you will make great strength gains from this type of training and it will carry right over into other training programs.  Think about the amount of tension that goes through your body on that last few reps of dead lifting, squatting, bench pressing, or any lift for that matter.  See how this can easily apply.

If you ever even thought about trying something like this then I would HIGHLY recommend his ebook.  It is over 200 pages of pure content and training exercises for the forearm, wrist, and grip.  The techniques described are very important to learn so not to injure yourself and really benefit from it.  Oh, did I mention how much fun it is, especially going down to the hardware store to get nails and bolts only to tell them that you are going to bend them in half!  That look alone is priceless.  If you want to get more information about Jedd’s Guide to Bending Nails just click the link posted here: Click Here!

Keep an open mind about these different applications that can be applied to your training.  You might be surprised by your results and increased gains.

To your health,

Jerry

A lot of people ask me about my personal training programs and workouts.  Recently, I had a request from a subscriber to post a sample of one of my workouts.  Well, I did one better:  I filmed it and I show clips of the workout in the video.  You ask, I listen, then I post what you want.  So here you go, the following is exactly what I did on this day in my personal workout.

Warm-up 5min on a upright bike

Dynamic Flexibility (Continued Warm-up)

Shoulder Circuit (5 exercises-explained in detail in my shoulder injury prevention article)

Tennis Ball Arch Rollouts (I always do these when I am going to train without shoes on)

Homemade Indian Club work

KB Oblique Raise 2 x 8-10 (both sides)

KB Towel Around The World Swing 3 x 10-12 (both directions)

Double KB Clean To Press 3 x 10

Single KB Clean To Press 2 x 8

Bucket Hop 3 x 12 Supersetted with Push Away Pull-up 3 x 5-8

Spiderman Push-up 2 x 20

Stability Ball Stabilization Press 3 x 6-9

Straight Leg/Arm KB Sit-up 3 x fatigue

Band Stretch

This might look like a lot at first glance but my rest periods were very short; typically no more than one minute.  A good portion of my rest periods were spent hitting the record button on the video camera or repositioning it.

If you have any questions or comments about this workout; please post them below.  Also, if this is something you thought was informative and beneficial, let me know and I will post more of these.  Thank you for your continued support and questions.

Keep your passion alive,

Jerry