Impingement In Your Shoulder Joint? Neglected Lower Trapezius Might be The Cause...

CatDaddy

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Mar 12, 2017
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A good read from ergo on shoulder joint injuries and ways to strengthen/prevent them.

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"Impingement in your shoulder joint? A neglected lower trapezius might be the cause...


We've written ad infinitum that strength athletes who want to remain injury free will benefit from including reverse flies in their training schedules so that they develop their external rotators. This advice was not quite enough, we conclude after reading an article that American sports scientists at Nova Southeastern University will publish soon in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. To avoid injury, bodybuilders and fitness fanatics also need to do exercises that specifically develop their lower trapezius.

Study
The researchers studied 55 men who had been doing weight training for quite a while. Twenty-four of them had trouble with impingement in their shoulder joint - sports scientists refer to this as subacromial impingement syndrome - and 31 did not.
The researchers measured the amount of power the men were capable of developing with their internal rotators [the muscles at the front of the shoulder], their external rotators [the muscles at the back of the shoulder], the abductors [the muscles at the side of the shoulders], and the upper and lower part of the trapezius.

Results
All the men had an imbalance in their shoulder joint, but the men with shoulder problems had more imbalance than the men who had no impingement: the external rotators were noticeably less strong than the internal rotators and than the abductors, and the lower part of the trapezius was noticeably less strong than the upper part.

shoulderimpingementlowertrapezius2-1.gif


Conclusion
"The results of this investigation indicate that shoulder joint and muscle imbalances exist among weight training participants with subacromial impingement syndrome to a greater extent than those without subacromial impingement syndrome," the researchers concluded.

"Weight training routines often focus on the selection of large muscle groups such as the pectoralis major, upper trapezius, and deltoids, subsequently neglecting muscles responsible for shoulder stabilization – i.e. rotator cuff and scapular musculature."

How do you train your lower traps?
One exercise that the researcher has documented which reduces the imbalance is the reverse fly. This trains the external rotators, which hardly get stimulated at all in the classic exercises for chest, back and shoulders.

An exercise specifically geared to the lower trapezius is the prone-trap-raise. Upright rows and shrugs don't train the lower trapezius much. Charles Poliquin shows below how to do the prone-trap-raise."

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Source:
J Strength Cond Res. 2016 Jul 6. [Epub ahead of print].


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
What about impingements that result from old shoulder injury? I have an impingement that's caused by a bone spur that grew over the last 45 years after breaking the tip of the clavicle and now looking to get it removed.
 
Most times impingement is due to an imbalance of muscles in and around the shoulder capsule. Prime example are guys who only bench and shoulder press and never work the rear delt and scapula/trap region probably because they can't move big ego weight. Guys, it's important to work these muscles that you can't see in the mirror. And working the rear delts give a fuller shoulder look and not that pushing the lawn mower look we often see in gyms everywhere:

I've attended two Eric Cressey seminars and woukd highly recommend it to anyone who has shoulder issues or is a trainer/coach. He's one of the leading authorities on shoulder health and rehab in the country and trains/rehabs many MLB pitchers.
 
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