Shoulder Pain Series: Scarecrow Exercise
Shoulder Pain? Improve your shoulder health
In order to maximize back development and maintain shoulder health, make sure to include small isolation movements for the middle and lower traps, rhomboids, and rear deltoids.
Compound movements will often leave these muscles underdeveloped. It’s essential to train these small muscles with exercises such as:
- 𝐘𝐓𝗪’𝐬
- Retract shoulder blades prior to initiating movement
- 𝐅𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐬
- Use a neutral grip so thumbs are facing you to bias external rotation
- 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐬
- “Pretend your biceps is a rotisserie chicken” (𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘶𝘦 𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙) to maintain joint centration during rotation
- 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐅𝐥𝐲
- Maintain slight elbow bend
- 𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐀𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬
- Straight elbows, initiate movement with shoulder blades
- 𝐅𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬
- Hands pull away from body, keep elbows tight to body, maintain flexed elbow
These exercises can be done twice per week for a few sets of 12-20 reps. Make some room for these by adding them into your warm up, in between work sets as a filler exercise, or in between workouts whenever you have free time.
Scarecrow Exercise
The scarecrow exercise is an excellent exercise for improving shoulder health. During the scarecrow exercise you target abs and shoulders and also involves upper back & lower traps. This exercise can be performed using cable pulleys, dumbbells, or elastic resistance bands. The video below demonstrates the use of cable pulleys.
