Do you have neck and/or shoulder pain? Here at Energy Fitness, downtown Memphis, so many of our personal training and massage therapy clients come in with pain in which we have to both work around and create ways to improve mobility and stability to areas of their body to improve posture as well as increase well being.
Lisa Sanchez and I, Tonya Tittle have been personal training clients for over 16 years at Energy Fitnesss. We have several clients that are charter clients and we often mention to each other that we find it interesting how the workout programs we deliver to them have changed over the years based on their body needs.
As we age (sorry…it happens even at a cellular level), it’s pretty impossible to be completely unaware of the benefits of increased recovery time post workouts and the need to stretch or focus on getting stronger on specific muscle groups on the posterior side of your body. This can aid in decreased soreness after a workout, a decreased risk of injury, and better flexibility to name a few.
- Strengthening your weak muscles can help create proper muscle recruitment [meaning making sure you’re using the right muscles and the right types of muscles at the right time]. We see many clients doing a push-up and the shoulders are taking over all the work.
- Working on recruiting the right muscles and in the right order will help minimize any muscle imbalances.
- Working to improve aches and pains by strengthening your muscle imbalances can decrease overuse injuries, inflexibility, and other problem areas.
In this post, we offer you 2 exercises that could potentially ease pain
and improve posture. Our clients really can feel the
difference and improvement as they get more proficient at them.
Scapular Push-Ups strengthen the muscles around the scapula, the technical term for the shoulder blades. The specific muscle that you strengthen when you perform Scapula Push-Ups is the serratus anterior. It connects between the ribs, underneath the scapula itself, and its main function is to keep the shoulder blades pressed against the upper back. When you strengthen it, you promote normal scapula motion and improve shoulder mobility which can help ease neck and shoulder pain.
Check out the video below!
Try modified (on knees) at first and then progress to elbows and toes plank. If so inclined and you need an extra challenge after mastering these then grab a weight plate and very carefully perform reps with plate on upper back.
How many should you do? Depends on your fitness level and posture needs.
Try 2-3 sets of 10-25 reps or go for time and build time up to 20-30 seconds per set.
Shoulder mobility with head up or down. I show 2 different versions of this exercise in case someone has intense shoulder pain and can’t do the first one in the video.
Think “bring shoulder blades together and back into their pockets”
Try 10-15 reps of each or both exercises for 2-3 sets of each.
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