Strengthening relaxed shoulders?

It was recently pointed out to me that when I am hanging "straight-armed" in rest position, I am really hanging "straight-elbowed" but not straight-armed. In other words, my habit is to hang with a ton of tension in my shoulders, so that when I focus on fully relaxing my shoulder, my body drops by another 6 or 8 inches compared to what I'd thought previously was fully relaxed.

This is an obvious waste of energy and something I want to stop doing, but I do notice with this fully relaxed shoulder position that it feels a little..."off", like I'm pushing the shoulders in a direction they're very much not used to. Basically feels like the shoulder joint is not as stable it was when I kept the scapula pulled down and tense.

I decided to try some sets of pullups with the relaxed shoulder position, and they feel ok, but definitely different.

So my question is, should I do these "fully relaxed" (although with a slight elbow bend to protect the elbows) pullups to strengthen the relaxed shoulder position? Push-ups? Stay tense? Something else? I've never had shoulder problems, and I sure don't want to start.

No, keep your shoulders engaged for all exercises.

As for that "straight-armed" vs "straight-elbowed" semantics, it's just pseudo-anatomical talk.

Aerili wrote:No, keep your shoulders engaged for all exercises. As for that "straight-armed" vs "straight-elbowed" semantics, it's just pseudo-anatomical talk.

Oh good, I'd hoped you'd write in Aerili.

Ah, well, I made all that pseudo-anatomy up myself! I'm happy to say that I depress my scapulae into a maximally caudad position at rest, and it's not very restful, if that makes it more official!

Seriously, though: as I said in my original post, when started focusing on this, I discovered that I was holding my body substantially higher than it needed to be in what I thought was a restful position.

When you say "shoulders engaged for all exercises" are you thinking of climbing as an exercise too? I.e., that I should NOT relax my shoulder in this way when resting on a climb? It feels like keeping my shoulders tight at rest seems pretty equivalent to keeping my elbows bent at 90 degrees while resting, no?

Optimistic wrote:but I do notice with this fully relaxed shoulder position that it feels a little..."off"... Basically feels like the shoulder joint is not as stable it was when I kept the scapula pulled down and tense.

When you relax your shoulder the joint it is "Vulnerable," or "not as stable" as you put it. While you rest it is Ok to relax the shoulder your hanging off of as long as you engage it again before loading the joint or initiating movement.

Ryan Kempf wrote: When you relax your shoulder the joint it is "Vulnerable," or "not as stable" as you put it. While you rest it is Ok to relax the shoulder your hanging off of as long as you engage it again before loading the joint or initiating movement.

Ok thanks.

And then would pushups and pullups (with shoulders fully engaged) as a way to protect the shoulders from injury?

^^ Yes, all exercises as much as possible.

Optimistic wrote:When you say "shoulders engaged for all exercises" are you thinking of climbing as an exercise too? I.e., that I should NOT relax my shoulder in this way when resting on a climb?

Yes, I am saying that climbing is an exercise too.

I am not sure how you are defining "rest". There is active rest and there is true rest (like - a no hands rest or.... sitting on your bouldering pad). If you are actively resting while hanging off a straight arm, keep the associated shoulder engaged as much as possible. If you are no-hands resting, it doesn't matter.

Optimistic wrote: Ah, well, I made all that pseudo-anatomy up myself!

:-)

Keep those shoulders engaged It keeps them safe. If I do need to rest my shoulders I do it when I have good feet to support my weight, or I rest one shoulder at a time.

Aerili wrote:^^ Yes, all exercises as much as possible. Yes, I am saying that climbing is an exercise too. I am not sure how you are defining "rest". There is active rest and there is true rest (like - a no hands rest or.... sitting on your bouldering pad). If you are actively resting while hanging off a straight arm, keep your shoulders engaged. If you are no-hands resting, it doesn't matter. :-)

Maybe I'm beating this to death, but I'm really curious about it...

Yep, talking about hanging off a straight arm.

So what would you define as "properly engaged" when hanging straight-armed? As near as I can tell, what I'd previously been doing was hanging straight-armed with my shoulder in basically the same position that it would be if I were standing with my arms relaxed at my sides. Transferring that position to climbing forces me to hold my body about 1-3" higher (I checked just now on the hangboard, turns out that I was exaggerating before, typical male behavior!) than it is if I relax fully. Now if I really engaged as hard as I could of course I could pull my shoulder even lower than this neutral position but that seems excessive...I'm thinking that there must be "too engaged" as well as "not engaged enough".

Is the key point that, like the elbow, I should just leave the shoulder just a little bit "cocked" to allow the muscles to stabilize the ligaments? More than that?

Again, sorry to be laboring over this, but it seems like a real opportunity to climb more efficiently...unless I hurt myself in the process!

The shoulder is not exactly the same as the elbow since it has more mobility in multiple planes of movement. Therefore it will require more focus on stability to stay healthy (generally speaking).

I would do your best to retract the shoulder blades enough to maintain the joint in a fairly stable manner but not be overly taxing. So this could mean just pulling the shoulder blade back a bit. Since everyone's joint is a little different, the muscle mass around it a little different, and the rotator cuff development a little different, it is impossible to say "exactly" how much. But any joint stabilization is better than none. Maintaining a strong cuff will also help provide "back up" stability during one-arm hangs.

Btw, during push-ups, the shoulder blade will/should move forward during full extension of the arms. This is normal and necessary for mobility; the focus should be on preventing the shoulders from creeping toward the ears.

If I dont keep my right shoulder partially engaged it will dislocate in a split second

Thanks all, I appreciate the wisdom and will proceed cautiously. I'll try to find the lowest energy position that feels solid.

I always thought one should concentrate on lat engagement, both for hanging & for doing pull-ups. You shoulder muscles aren't that big & they will get overloaded w/o engaged lats.

reboot wrote:I always thought one should concentrate on lat engagement, both for hanging & for doing pull-ups. You shoulder muscles aren't that big & they will get overloaded w/o engaged lats.

Lats will naturally engage if you are doing it right. Lats depress the shoulder blade and internally rotate the humerus. Maintaining good shoulder mechanics is really a synchronized blend of many musculoskeletal things happening together although the brain may not parse out the fine details a la sensory feedback.

Aerili wrote: Lats will naturally engage if you are doing it right...

Well, that's arguing what's more natural, thinking about your shoulder position or engaging your lat. But considering how many (especially female) climbers tend to do pullups wrong (including very seasoned climbers w/ well built shoulder muscles) and have had serious shoulder injuries, I think it's worth stress engaging the muscle that's actually doing most of the work.

In my experience professionally training people in the past, people perform instructed motions or body positions more naturally than saying "make a muscle do this" (unless it's something like an isometric contraction). So for engaging the shoulders, I would ask someone to keep their shoulders pressed down away from the ears (scapular depression) and pinch their shoulder blades together (scapular retraction). Then naturally they will recruit all the right muscles. Saying "engage your ___" leaves most people confused. Of course ymmv.

As for the lat doing most of the work: in an exercise like a pull-up, it is a prime mobilizer. There are other primary and powerful scapular stabilizers like rhomboids and mid- and lower trapezius. These are usually the weak links in shoulder injuries and I would say they also do "most of the work" while hanging off a straight arm.

To answer Optimistic's question about resting on a route, yes you can injure your shoulder from relaxing too much. I developed some sort of shoulder tendonitis from ARCing on a 45-degree wall for 10x20min. sessions per week. This is a more common injury in Europe where routes are steeper and longer, and I have heard coaches warn of this injury for route competition climbers.

Shoulder engagement is a big issue. I had impingement and adhesive capulitis after 15 years of poor shoulder engagement. It took three years of PT and learning how to properly hang to recover. For me serratus anterior engagement was key. And I had surprisingly weak lower traps.

It was hard as shit to figure out what this meant until I experienced it.

PM if you want-

Aerili wrote:unless it's something like an isometric contraction...

Isn't that what a dead hang is? It's often more efficient to hang as low as you can while you rest, or while climbing, more advantageous to be able to reach as high as you can, but that doesn't mean you can forget about engaging the muscles.

For the case of pulling, what if you modify the grip w/ the wrists internally rotated by 90 degree (say on the rings), or if you are trying to eventually progress into muscle-up or one arm pull-up? They don't have the same (fixed) retracted scapular position.

reboot wrote: Isn't that what a dead hang is? It's often more efficient to hang as low as you can while you rest, or while climbing, more advantageous to be able to reach as high as you can, but that doesn't mean you can forget about engaging the muscles.

I agree; you should maintain the same scapular engagement while dead hanging. Lats will be involved to some degree but I do not believe they are still considered the primary stabilizer.

Even when telling someone to isometrically contract a muscle often requires instructing a motion, not a muscle. Because instructing people to contract individual muscles means they a) have to know the anatomy specifically b) they have to know the action of the muscle and c) they have to have the kinesthetic awareness to put it all together. Rarely happens in my experience. There are some exceptions with muscles like the quad or the tricep...sometimes.

reboot wrote:For the case of pulling, what if you modify the grip w/ the wrists internally rotated by 90 degree (say on the rings), or if you are trying to eventually progress into muscle-up or one arm pull-up? They don't have the same (fixed) retracted scapular position.

Right, the position will be different. But it doesn't mean the primary scapular stabilizers change roles. If I understand you correctly.

SMR wrote:For me serratus anterior engagement was key. And I had surprisingly weak lower traps.

Yes, I forgot to mention serratus anterior. Lower traps and S.A. weakness/inhibition are two of the main culprits in "scapular dyskinesis". And actually, overactivation of the lats is often part of the problem, contributing to it vs helping prevent it. It adds to the hunched-over posture so often seen in climbers because it pulls the scaps down and out.

Sound like any climbers we know? ;)

Aerili- Thanks for the insights. I have taken a couple of anatomy classes and activating the SA was a big challenge even with my arms at the side of my body. When I had to translate this to overhead movement, it took about 6 months of drills to solidify this pattern to make it feel more natural.

Reboot- I find I can rest with straight arms and engaged shoulders on routes very easily now. However, there is a learning curve for the angle (if climbing at Maple vs. Wailing Wall vs. slabs).

Not to open up another conversation, but if your core is strong, all of this resting / relaxed thing gets easier.....

SMR wrote:
For me serratus anterior engagement was key. And I had surprisingly weak lower traps.

Yes, I forgot to mention serratus anterior. Lower traps and S.A. weakness/inhibition are two of the main culprits in "scapular dyskinesis". And actually, overactivation of the lats is often part of the problem, contributing to it vs helping prevent it. It adds to the hunched-over posture so often seen in climbers because it pulls the scaps down and out.

Could you guys expand a little on the SA concept and how to strengthen them? Just good ol' pullups with good form?