UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => diet, training and injuries => Topic started by: tommytwotone on January 17, 2009, 03:52:58 pm
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Right, following on from posts on a couple of threads here it's got me thinking that I should put some focus on antagonist training. I'm conscious that my deskbound work / terrible posture ain't helping me get fully fit, plus I injured my shoulder last weekend on my first climbing session back after Xmas so I won't be climbing for a bit.
Thought I'd see if anyone's got anything to add to what I'm currently doing that might be beneficial.
My current session, twice a week is...
Shoulder press (machine) - 2 x 15, 15kg
Chest press (machine) - 2 x 20, 20kg
Press ups 2 x 15
Dips (on box, feet on floor) - 2 x 15
Some ab stuff - crunches / leg raises
Thinking I should be adding some free weight shit to the above, so the other day started doing some front shoulder raises with 5kg dumbell, tricep extensions with the same.
Does that sounds like enough / the right sort of thing?
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I just do body weight stuff. Dips on the ring's, different types of press up's. I use a dumbell for reverse wrist curls, also have a stability ball for press up's to work the core to. Gym would be usefull, but they are a bit of a rip off down my way.
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Does anyone know of a more compact alternative to a stability ball? Small house + too much crap already = stressed g/f
::)
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Right, following on from posts on a couple of threads here it's got me thinking that I should put some focus on antagonist training. I'm conscious that my deskbound work / terrible posture ain't helping me get fully fit, plus I injured my shoulder last weekend on my first climbing session back after Xmas so I won't be climbing for a bit.
Thought I'd see if anyone's got anything to add to what I'm currently doing that might be beneficial.
My current session, twice a week is...
Shoulder press (machine) - 2 x 15, 15kg
Chest press (machine) - 2 x 20, 20kg
Press ups 2 x 15
Dips (on box, feet on floor) - 2 x 15
Some ab stuff - crunches / leg raises
Does that sounds like enough / the right sort of thing?
Ditch the machines. Exrx.net is your freind!
Tricep extensions with db's are a bit faffy, use a cable stack or something and do strict pushdowns.
Do gironda dips instead of tricep dips, lean slightly forward in the dip bars to help hit your chest.
Ab stuff, I'd start lever progressions if I was you.
As previously stated rings are good for this kind of thing if you have access and someone to shout at you when you're a little "floppy".
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Yes sack off of the machines... there only good for shaping muscle. Work with dumbells as much as possible and don't cheat i.e very strict movement and full range of motion. For example on a bench press with smith machine or bar your range is limited by lenghth of arms and big chest in the way. Try the same excercise with dumbells and you can drop the dumbell way below the chest.
Its the same with shouler press ... with a bar your swede gets in the way....
I use training with weights as a form of weak point training..... try to balance and equalise the body.. if you can pulldown 100kg you should be bench pressing and shoulder pressing the same.
If you want to train specific muscle groups together and feel an amazing pump ... try tri-setting the three deltoid heads
or superset the chest and back or superset biceps and triceps....these are all endurance exercises. For power drop down to 1/2 reps maximum lift and isolate the muscle.
try this... 5 X sets of 10-12 1 min rest between sets.... and no rest during tri-set
front delt...dumbell raises, slightly leaning forward, twisting towards the top-palms down, dont use your back to flick the weights up.
straight into arnie shoulder presses, middle delt. with dumbells and then rear delt. various exercises for this ..i bend over feet together raise to the side.
1 min rest, repeat five times.
Next dumbell curls/tricep extensions on cable.... superset.. reps 10/12 five sets 1 min rest between superset.
this is 1 hour in the gym. the next day train back and chest to rest shouders and arms. simple... what you reckon paul. :o
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I'm never sold on the high rep range. If you're wanting to build up some antagonistic strength to balance that back out then surely the reps should be low low low?
Supersetting, is good. I found when doing chest and back splits I'd look in the mirror afterwards and depending which session I'd just had the other would look heavily under proportioned. A superset session sorted that out.
Just a thought of mine but I don't think a fully balanced climber, i.e. same bench and pulldown stats is achieving his/her full climbing potential. In my own experience I've found that my back develops to a level of strength then plateau's, by then bringing my chest up slightly, I expand the potential for my back to develop more. I've never got anywhere near the amount I can pull down when doing bench.
I read once that "If you bench +/- 20% (ish) more than you can pulldown then you are in the highest risk group for shoulder injury". Food for thought.
God I miss weights...
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Just a thought of mine but I don't think a fully balanced climber, i.e. same bench and pulldown stats is achieving his/her full climbing potential.
Remember that you're talking to cuboard here Paul. ;)
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I use training with weights as a form of weak point training..... try to balance and equalise the body.. if you can pulldown 100kg you should be bench pressing and shoulder pressing the same.
Surely that would be a whole lot more heavy muscle to be carrying around for climbing - most of which won't be adding to your climbing performance?
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I repeat......... :lol:
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That was my point.
Being a crimp waif the added weight hasn't seemed to disadvantage me but I can see for some people it will be a massive issue. Being so un-balanced was creating issues for me, regularly my sternum would crunch when rolling over in my sleep etc.
Wait 'til Richdraws turns up, you'll get some solid advice there.
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The basics of antagonism are a sinch. Repeat after me (you'll pick it up in no time):
You're shit.
Why don't you just give up?
I remember the first time I drilled your mum, like it was yesterday... *wistful*
Have you put on weight?
You're struggling aren't you?
You climb like a chicken in flight
Can you spell 'lard-ass'?
8)
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The basics of antagonism are a sinch. Repeat after me (you'll pick it up in no time):
You're shit.
Why don't you just give up?
I remember the first time I drilled your mum, like it was yesterday... *wistful*
Have you put on weight?
You're struggling aren't you?
You climb like a chicken in flight
Can you spell 'lard-ass'?
8)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aUc62jD-G0o (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aUc62jD-G0o)
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(Ah, now that happens to be an ad-libbed scene. Genius.)
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Wait 'til Richdraws turns up, you'll get some solid advice there.
You wont get any sense from me, not enough alcohol allowed in my system anymore means I am grumpy and antagonistic.
Right Twotone yer cunt...
I wish I could undo the amount of time I have spent building muscle. But once you have it its a fucker to get rid of so you might as well make sure the muscle you have is as strong as possible.
Twotone you injured yourself at the works right? Why not use the rings and do some dips, they will be way more beneficial to your shoulder strength and prevent you wasting hours in a gym. If you have to go down the gym route why not do something that wont pack on the pounds but will pack on the power - some olympic lifting.
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See thats some knowledge right there: Olympic Lifts for the world!
Ring workouts (steady now!) really are good.
They're hard though and in the works you'll get some twat who wanders over and says something like "how do i get my lardy ass to do that iron cross thingy?" or "look at my muscle up" or "yeah its really hard... until your body gets used to it like mine" (Whilst dancing in between the rings).
Theres still no box either just a swiss ball. I DARE YOU to do a jack knife press up on a swiss ball. Its not as if building wooden boxes is a rarity in the place so I don't see why they haven't bothered.
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I'll write more on this when I have time, but the idea of agonist/antagonist muscle balance as key to correct biomecanics is outdated. What you have in the body is movement muscles and stabilising muscles (and some muscles that do a bit of both). What you need is alignment (posture, if you like) at ALL joints, and dynamic control of ALL joints (i.e. maintenance of alignment through movement).
Anyway, I have to start work now, but in the short term, forget the bench presses.
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I DARE YOU to do a jack knife press up on a swiss ball.
Paul, any links/demo's/description of said exercise?
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I'll write more on this when I have time, but the idea of agonist/antagonist muscle balance as key to correct biomecanics is outdated. What you have in the body is movement muscles and stabilising muscles (and some muscles that do a bit of both). What you need is alignment (posture, if you like) at ALL joints, and dynamic control of ALL joints (i.e. maintenance of alignment through movement).
Anyway, I have to start work now, but in the short term, forget the bench presses.
Please do, i'm very interested to hear about this. Just a quick look on ExRx at a Pull Up (climbing specific), you get:
Muscles
Target
* Latissimus Dorsi
Synergists
* Brachialis
* Brachioradialis
* Biceps Brachii
* Teres Major
* Rhomboids
* Levator Scapulae
* Pectoralis Minor
* Trapezius, Lower
* Pectoralis Major, Sternal
Dynamic Stabilizers
* Triceps, Long Head
as the muscles involved, and
Synergist
A muscle that assists another muscle to accomplish a movement.
Stabilizer
A muscle that contracts with no significant movement to maintain a posture or fixate a joint.
Thats always been why I'd understood that working these muscle would be useful?
What you need is alignment (posture, if you like) at ALL joints, and dynamic control of ALL joints (i.e. maintenance of alignment through movement).
Is it really possible to achieve this on lets say the shoulders where you may have a massively over developed posterior delt compared to the relatively underdeveloped anterior delt that most climbers have? :-\
Tobym, put a chair/block/swiss ball if your mad a bit away from the rings so you can place your feet on it and support yourself in the press up position with the rings in line with your shoulders. Now, keeping your arms straight extend your arms forward until you're doing a double superman style manouevre. When you're fully stretched keeping your arms straight get back into the original position. Obviously if you're on a swiss ball it will have rolled and you'll need shoulder surgery.
http://www.trainingrings.com/index.php?page=ExercisePushUp (http://www.trainingrings.com/index.php?page=ExercisePushUp)
feet on the floor like that if you're just starting out on a block if your a little more beastly.
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Wait 'til Richdraws turns up, you'll get some solid advice there.
You wont get any sense from me, not enough alcohol allowed in my system anymore means I am grumpy and antagonistic.
Right Twotone yer cunt...
I wish I could undo the amount of time I have spent building muscle. But once you have it its a fucker to get rid of so you might as well make sure the muscle you have is as strong as possible.
Twotone you injured yourself at the works right? Why not use the rings and do some dips, they will be way more beneficial to your shoulder strength and prevent you wasting hours in a gym. If you have to go down the gym route why not do something that wont pack on the pounds but will pack on the power - some olympic lifting.
Cheers for the info - I'm not going to The Works at the moment as my neck's on the block for reduncancy at work so I'm trying to keep outgoings to a minimum in case I get my P45 next week. I'll defo give the rings a try when I'm next there though. On the plus side, if I get the chop it'll give me some time to train properly!
I'd always dismissed the rings because I thought I'd need a decent base level of strength to get anything out of them, plus I was always worried about injuring myself on them. Guess it's worth a go.
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If you want a few pointers give me a shout. Before I became an alcoholic I used to teach gymnastics. Just PM me.
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Right, here goes. I shall try and summarize what I alluded to earlier. I hope it comes out making some sense. I suppose what the question about 'antagonistics' can be translated to is 'how can I make sure all the training I do doesn't lead to altered movement patterns, which are ultimately damaging and lead to injury?' (this I shall refer to as 'the question').
First off, here's something for you to try: stand up from a normal chair, but put your hands on your hamstrings as you do so. Now, standing from sitting, in the agonist/antagonist model would be a purely quadriceps job - your hamstrings would be relaxed. But you should feel that they are working. What used to be thought of as agonist/antagonist muscle groups (quads/hams, biceps/triceps, finger flexors/extensors) actually work synergistically to produce a smooth movement.
The reason this happens can be better illustrated with the wrist/fingers. The finger flexors also flex the wrist; the finger extensors also extend the wrist. So, if I want to flex my fingers, but not my wrist (which, incidently is a completely abnormal movement pattern that only occurs after neurological injury), my extensors have to work to keep my wrist stable.
On to the shoulder... The shoulder girdle is a crazy structure. We shall look at the scapula-thoracic junction first. The job of the scapula is to put the glenoid (the dish that the head of humerus sits in) in the right place for the arm action required, and to either stay in the right position, or to move in a controlled way, as the arm performs the task at hand. Unlike the hip/pelvis, which is very stable, the scapula is not (to allow for the range of movement that the arm needs), and is controlled by muscles. Did you know that the only bony attachment of your shoulder to your torso is via your clavicle (collar bone), which joins your scapula to your sternum. The scapula is basically a free floating docking point for the humerus, which is tethered to the thorax by a number of muscles - pec minor at the front, levator scapulae, trapezius (upper/middle/lower), and rhomboids at the back, as well as lat dorsi and serratus anterior (if i've missed any off, sorry, that's just off the top of my head). Now (in theory) these muscles all work together to move and stabilise the scapula.
...but, it often goes wrong, particularly in climbers. Here's why:
The position of the scapula is initially determined by the shape of the thorax. As we all know, many climbers have quite rounded backs, which causes the glenoid to face more anteriorly/inferiorally than it should, which makes it harder to lift the arm aove the head. Try it - really slump into a C shape and try and lift your arm above your head, now straighten up and see how much further it goes.
OK, so we need to be less rounded (kyphotic - it's called a thoracic kyphosis if you want to look it up).
The real problem for climbers lie in the fact that the arms aren't designed to do what we do, and the scapula stabilizers (serratus anterior, middle and lower traps) get pushed out of doing their job by the more 'active' scapula movement muscles - pec minor, upper traps, rhomboids, and to some extent lat dorsi. Problems here are that pec minor pulls the scapula forward and down, exacerbating the problems described above. The rhomboids do a good job of stabilising the scapula when the arm is below shoulder height, but as the arm raises, the scapula move away from the spine, rhomboids lengthen and can't stabilise the scapula anymore, and it 'wings' away from the chest wall - you'll see this all the time when someone catches a hold above and away from them and cuts loose - you can almost see under the scapula.
Both of these things are going to increase the likelihood of the main thing we are trying to prevent in the shoulder - impingement. This is basically an umberella term for the humerus moving about in the glenoid, and damaging structures around it - normally above or in front. The ikely structures to be damaged are - the labrum (ring of cartilage around the glenoid), the biceps tendon where it runs over the front of the shoulder, or the rotator cufftendon where it runs over the top of the humerus.
In a nutshell, you need to re-activate the stabilisers - serratus anterior and the middle and lower traps. But it's hard to do - these muscles don't contain stretch and tension receptors so it's difficult to isolate them. also the exercises won't make you ripped or impress girls (or boys). in fact, you look a bit of a nob doing them. and they're boring. You need somebody to show you how to do them - your brain has no idea where your scapula is or what it is up to.
Right, that's the scapula. it's an amazing piece of engineering, but destined to go wrong. Onto the gleno-humeral joint (glenoid is the 'socket' on the scapula, and you all know what the humerus is).
This bit should be easier, but again, the aim is to keep the humerus stable throughout movement/loading, so it doesn't move around. I know a lot of people do rotator cuff exercises with a theraband, which is great. However, the other thing we need to consider is the position of the humerus in the glenoid. Virtually all climbers' humerii sit too far forward in the glenoid, so some form of anterior impimngement is almost inevitable. You need to start to push the head of humerus backwards, but this is difficult to achieve without introducing instability. It is vital to keep the rotator cuff active.
Almost finally, the subscapularis is part of the rotator cuff that often gets forgotton about - it is attached to the underside of the scapula (i.e. between the chest wall and the scapula) and needs to be part of your rotator cuff routine. To be honest, i forget about too.
Finally, the other vthing that must always be addressed when trying to improve biomechanics are the ligaments. There are many ligamnets around the scapula, but these really limit end of range, so shouldn't get in the way of improvements in scapula stability. Around the shoulder joint (gleno-humeral) is a capsule, which will also cause anterior movement/positioning of the humeral head if it becomes tight. So you need to stretch this too.
Basically, you're not going to be able to diagnose your own alignment/bio-mechanical problems with google and a physiology textbook. I am often around and about and can give general advice on posture/stabilising exercises. If anyone has an actual problem (I'm making myself sound like the A team!), i'm more than happy to talk to them about it. I'll probaly advise you to get it seen to, but can give you some background info which may be helpful. If you are suffering with general, diffuse lateral arm/bicep pain, you probably have some degree of anterior impingement, and i'll definitely be happy to give you my opinion.
phew. hope that all makes sense(ish).
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p.s. To go back to the original question about antagonists, a big problem is that exercising the antagonists (i.e. bench presses/shoulder presses etc) will actually exacerbate the movement/stability dysfunctons that we already have. They will further activate the movement muscles, and the stabilising muscles will become even less active.
In order to stabilise the shoulder, we do it, not by building muscles at the front, but by getting alignment right and using the muscles that are there to do the job they are supposed to do.
I find it helpful to think of the rotator cuff as guy-lines that pull the humerus into position as it moves.
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Thanks for that. I posted this question some time ago on UKC:
by - Serpico on - 18 Jan 2008
In reply to i.munro:
The rotator cuff muscles aren't antagonists they're fixators/synergists. I'm interested in this idea that's often repeated on here that training antagonists will prevent injury to agonists, when I've never seen any research to support it, no explanation of biomechanically how it works, and no history of it in other sports. It's common in other sports to train antagonists to prevent muscle imbalance injuries, but these are injuries to the weaker antagonist caused by the rapid contraction of a stronger agonist. For instance: in the javelin the agonist is the tricep which contracts strongly at great speed to extend the arm, the antagonist (the bicep) must stretch rapidly, and provide some braking at the end of the motion when the javelin is released, so it makes sense to condition the bicep to withstand these huge forces. Similarly in sprinting the prime movers are the quads and the antagonists are the hams, and it's far more common to see a sprinter pull up with a strained hamstring than a quad injury.
In the shoulder climbers commonly get impingement at the front of the shoulder (possibly what you have?). We tend to chronically stretch our back muscles (lats, rotator cuff, etc,) by hanging on straight arms, and relaxed backs, while trying to recover on routes. Meanwhile the pecs etc also get worked, but are not subject to the same kind of stretching. When muscles are strengthened without stretching they can shorten their resting lengths, so you end up with an imbalance in tension between chest and back, pulling the shoulders forward (the classic climbers rounded back). The solution is to stretch the pecs, tighten the rotator cuff, and scapular retraction.
With the forearm some of the muscles we perceive as antagonists actually contribute to the movement so are actually fixators and/or synergists, wrist extensors for example.
One of the reasons I'm interested in this antagonists protect agonists thing is apart from not being able to find any evidence/reference to it in other sports, is that it seems to contradict one of the fundamental adaptations to strength training ie: that increase in strength is partly down to decreased co-activation of the antagonists.
I hope that all makes sense, and someone can shed some light on this for me.
Your post has addressed a lot of that, but I doubt the 'training antagonists cures all' mantra will disappear from climbing any time soon...
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I don't understand the physiology, but The Sausage's postural/stability advice has certainly helped me with elbow problems. However, in my limited experience if my elbows are sometimes feeling a tiny bit sore I find a few sets of bench presses soothing. I don't know if this has anything to do with antagonists, but there is the anecdote anyway. Also, since I have started doing some weights once a week my body has definitely felt better. Also pumping iron has a bigger overall impact on your metabolic rate than cardio ever will, which is nice. Plus its fun.
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Thanks for taking the time to post all that Sausage.
As someone who's had numerous shoulder issues in the past (my dislocating shoulder has now been operated on) and is blindly hoping press-ups are the way froward, it's made me think a physio trip might be in order to get taught some exercises.
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Serpico's post raises 2 issues, both of which are interesting:
1) the issue of the antagonist lengthening during agonist contraction. Now, this is not something that I have read about, but i have observed it in myself, and would be interested to know what other people think: If you have any instability in your shoulder, all of the muscles that act across the joint will attempt to stabilise. One of the heads of triceps crosses behind the gleno-humeral joint - and as such I think that the triceps will be activated to try and stabilise the shoulder. Now, imagine you are trying to do 1-4-7 on a campus board (who? me? 1-4-7? never tried it...) you catch the 4th rung with your left. Shoulder stabilisers ned to be fully engaged, but they don't really work, causing a generalised contration of all the muscles around the shoulder. Including triceps. Now, to pull through to 7, you need to flex the elbow. but your triceps are busy stabilising the shoulder (you can't contract only part of the muscle), so there is increased tension in the triceps, and elbow flexion becomes nigh in impossble. Now, i know muscles can contract and lengthen at the same time (the quads do it everytime you sit down), but that almost always happens wth gravity, not against it.
2) The issue of the runners' hamstring injury is caused by the FACT that the hamstrings contract very quickly to pull the foot back through after the 'drive' phase of running gait. Interestingly, the hamstrings also contract (in walking and running) just before the foot is put back on the floor out in front of you to prevent repetitive hyperextension of the knee, and allow a much more controlled foot placement, (try walking with just 'flicking' your leg through. This is alluded to in Serpico's post about the biceps providing 'braking' at the end of the javelin throw. For Javelin throwers, the rotator cuff provides braking for the forward movement of the humerus too, and they get a lot of problems with this.
Ultimately, I don't think very much thought/research has ever gone into climbers' injuries. I sometimes feel I am mounting a one man crusade against the blanket diagnoses of golfers'/tennis elbow and the general view that tendonitis is the root of all evil. I am always interested in talking to people face to face about their injuries as I think there is a growing need for some climbing specific physiotherapy. I don't think i'm nearly experienced enough to dole out anything more than advice at present, but will happily do so provided I get feedback about how well/badly it went.
Three-nine, i'm glad your elbows are feeling better. That was a bit of a throwaway comment about bench presses. I think general conditioning through weights is a very important part of training for climbing. If only we ahd more time...
ps, you may have guessed i'm not at work this week. or next week. or the week after. YYFY!!!
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ps, you may have guessed i'm not at work this week. or next week. or the week after. YYFY!!!
You total bastard. You better get something hard done or I'm puntering you!
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I managed the crux of nasty traverse (at minus 10) 4 times yesterday! (does that count?) the rest of it was wet. A move I previously thought of as impossible. Come on Jerry!
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I am always interested in talking to people face to face about their injuries as I think there is a growing need for some climbing specific physiotherapy. I don't think i'm nearly experienced enough to dole out anything more than advice at present, but will happily do so provided I get feedback about how well/badly it went.
YHPM :-*
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Now, to pull through to 7, you need to flex the elbow. but your triceps are busy stabilising the shoulder (you can't contract only part of the muscle), so there is increased tension in the triceps, and elbow flexion becomes nigh in impossble. Now, i know muscles can contract and lengthen at the same time (the quads do it everytime you sit down), but that almost always happens wth gravity, not against it.
In terms of how many muscle fibres you recruit it is possible to contract only part of the muscle, but the fibres that are recruited will contract fully along their entire length generating force across each joint as in your scenario. What makes the difference to where movement takes place is the ratio of tricep to other muscle activation (just like in the example you gave of wrist flexion), and I think that for most climbers bicep, BR and lat strength is such that even if the long head of the tricep was fully activated joint flexion at the elbow would still happen.
Also when you've caught rung 4 with your left, your right tricep long head is going to be contracting to pull the arm towards the ribcage, which is at odds with the view espoused by Horst (and others) that 'the pushing muscles' are antagonists and don't get used in climbing. I don't think that there are any antagonists in climbing, only antagonists for some specific movements, and that relationship is often reversed on the next move.
Vaguely back on the OP's OT I think that if you're going to add in supplemental conditioning for climbing it should be whole body conditioning focusing on multi joint exercises - body building isolation exercises are useless for anything other than addressing very specific weaknesses.
I have 3 basic routines which I do at different times of the year after climbing:
Preparatory phase:
Dumbbell complexes.
http://www.istvanjavorek.com/page2.html (http://www.istvanjavorek.com/page2.html)
I do DB's 1 and 3, typically 3 sets. Followed by some pull ups/ cable lat pulls (pull bar to chest, never behind the neck).
Demo here:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8eZH1nwl45g
Nb: the above demo shows lunges instead of dumbbell kickbacks - I'd stick with the kickbacks.
Training phase medium:
8-10 reps
Dumbbell squats 1-2 sets
DB stiff legged deadlifts 1-2 sets
DB upright rows 2-3 sets
DB bent over row (arms out to side) 2-3 sets
DB chest press on Swiss ball ( don't lower the DB's so that the upper arms go past parallel with the floor to avoid stressing the shoulders) 2-3 sets
DB overhead press (don't lower DB's behind the neck) 2-3 sets
Pullups/cable lat pull downs 2-3 sets
Heavy phase:
This is still a work in progress... but so far:
Deadlifts ~6 reps 3-4 sets
One arm DB snatch 6 reps 3-4 sets
Weighted pull ups
Add in some fingerboard, a core routine, and some specials to address some particular weaknesses (reverse wrist curls, tricep extensions and hammer curls for me).
Take 3 times a week after climbing, dropping any exercise that feels like it's targeting muscles that have been tired already at the crag.
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Similarly, I don't understand half of the above posts, but i've been doing the theraband stuff for shoulder stablisation which the sausage mentioned to me at the works early in the autumn. My elbows haven't given me any real problems this winter (unlike last winter when they were a bit screwed) :great:
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Just found this thread and a lot of this information is 24 carrot gold-dust.
Was diagnosed last night with winging in my left scapula. Apparently my (weak/can't be arsed) Rhomboids are letting the scapula drift out too far, putting too much pressure on my infraspinatus (one of the rotator cuff muscles). Even though I was doing rotator cuff exercises, they were never going to help without the scapula being in the right position (down and level with spine).
Since last night I've being walking around less like an ape and more like C3P0. I've just now done my first pullup in a month with zero pain ;D
Am I right in thinking the scapula stabilisers look after the position of your scapular, which in turn looks after the position of the rotator cuffs, which in turn look after the shoulder joint :-\
Any clues on these boring exercises for serratus anterior + middle/lower traps?
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Hi CP...
...the thorny subject of scapula stabilisation exercises. You're pretty spot on in what you say - basically that the position of the scapula is crucial in terms of shoulder movement/function. Have you seen (either as a model or some sort of 3D imagery) what a scapula looks like, and how the 'socket' for the head of humerus (the glenoid) is attached? The shoulder complex is an amazing piece of engineering - the scapula basically floats on the thorax - its only bony attachment is via the clavicle, which attaches into the top of the sternum. That set up allows a huge range of movement, but it is destined to result in instability a lot of the time.
One of the problems that results in winging scapula, is that the rhomboids, far from being lazy, are in fact over-active. However, they aren't actually designed to stabilise the scapula. As the scapula moves away from the spine, they lengthen, and aren't able to control the inner edge of the scapula.
Again, as you rightly say, you need to engage your middle/lower traps and serratus anterior. These muscles are not easy to isolate. Also your brain has very little awareness of where your scapulae are, so it is very difficult to monitor whether you are doing the exercises correctly. It is easy to just engage your more active muscles (rhomboids, pecs, lats), which is obviously not what you want to do.
You need to be taught these exercises, and have them monitored and progressed until you are defnitely doing them correctly and effectively.
Who diagnosed your winging scapula? did they show you the traps/serratus exercises?
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abarro81 you say your elbows haven't given you as many problems this winter as last, however last winter you were down the wall all the time, this winter you haven't been (seen, plus we're only a couple of mths into the winter season). i don't think this is a realistic assessment of the theraband treatment, not to say that it doesn't work. you may actually be too tall for it to work
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You can only see the side of the campus board when you're hanging off the beastmaker, not surprising you missed him
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thanks to one of dobbins programs my phone is notified whenever someone tall walks into the works
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Hey Sausage, thanks for getting back...
I wasn't given any exercises to do, just told to carry on as normal with better posture! Had a training session the other day, and now my lower/mid traps are wrecking due to forcing my scapulae down all throughout my session! The pain is about 1 inch from my spine, starting just level with my armpit going 7inch down. Think I overdid it as far as the traps are concerned. At least my usual spot (behind left armpit) didn't hurt during the session. ...However that does hurt more now! so 1 step forward, 2 back :'(
I'm now convinced it's not rhomboids. I've realised that I actually do exercices that pretty much target these muscles.
I'm more convinced that it's this serratus anterior that I've never heard of. I believe things like overhead shrugs and woodchoppers target them. I tried woodchoppers the other day and it seemed way harder than I thought it would be, which makes me suspicious...
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abarro81 you say your elbows haven't given you as many problems this winter as last, however last winter you were down the wall all the time, this winter you haven't been (seen, plus we're only a couple of mths into the winter season). i don't think this is a realistic assessment of the theraband treatment, not to say that it doesn't work. you may actually be too tall for it to work
you need to read the date he posted Dense... it WAS last winter
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oh my god i'm a mong. :-[ i thought it was a new thread. then that is a realistic assessment of the theraband treatment since he was at the wall all the time. everybody to the therabands
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I'm more convinced that it's this serratus anterior that I've never heard of. I believe things like overhead shrugs and woodchoppers target them. I tried woodchoppers the other day and it seemed way harder than I thought it would be, which makes me suspicious...
Side-planks, press-ups and 2-point kneeling can all potentially work serratus, although none of these exercises are very specific to climbing. As Sausage says though, it's hard to target this muscle without someone else telling you whether you're 'cheating', at least to start with. Using two mirrors so you can see when your scapula is starting to wing or elevate can be helpful.
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Antagonists the basics= Press ups and manual labour
All you need to know
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I mentioned this in my original post, but it's important to get away from the idea of agonists and antagonists. Muscles work synergistically. They can be divided into 'movement' and 'postural' muscles - the postural muscles stabilising the joint while the movement muscles move the limb.
Problems arise because the movement muscles are easier to activate than postural muscles, and much easier to target. The problem with any strenuous exercises - such as wood chopping, manual labour, press-ups, shoulder shrugs - is that if your postural muscles don't really work well, your movement muscles will try to move and stabilise the joint simultaneously. This will be ineffective in stabilising the joint in the outer ranges of available movement, and (crucially) will provide large amounts of resistance to the movement you are trying to achieve.
Postural muscles (such as serratus anterior, middle/lower traps, sub-scapularis, infraspinatous & teres minor) need to (initially) be activated and learned as a very low level contraction - this will enable them to work without the movement muscles (pecs, lats, rhomboids, triceps) taking over.
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Is it actually possible to isolate these mythical serratus anterior muscles and feel them doing their job without other, bigger muscles taking over?
I just don't get how you can learn to use it. I can move my shoulder joint up, down, backwards and forwards, but I believe yet again, this is just other muscles.
I've recently started doing scapular pushups and after 3 sets the whole upper back area feels great. However I get the impression it could be doing more harm than good if my scapular is still going for a walk during this exercise.
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I'm no expert, but I find a theraband pretty useful for targetting specific muscles. I think this is because, unlike weigths where gravity is the resistive force and (usually) acts in the same direction, you can use a theraband to get resistance in just about any plane of movemement. Could be bollocks though.
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yeah, I've thought that. Doing the external rotation exercise for rotator cuff with weights hits the muscle most when the arm is less rotated, but with bands you feel it more when the arm is most externally rotated. Which is best? Probably a combination of both at a guess.
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Is it actually possible to isolate these mythical serratus anterior muscles and feel them doing their job without other, bigger muscles taking over?
Undoubtedly possible. Difficult without someone else giving feedback.
You can try feeling for serratus in the space under your armpit in front of latissimus and behind pecs major:
(http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/71/Gray1215.png)
Do a single-arm press-up against a wall whilst feeling for a contraction (ie muscle swells slightly) in serratus with the non-pushing hand. Pecs and lats. should stay fairly quiet and relaxed. To start with, you may only be able to push very slightly before pecs. starts to join in.
LIke this only one handed:
(http://www.blogthecoast.com/runway_ready/archives/wall-push-ups.jpg)
Someone else should be monitoring and teaching this, it's pretty hard to describe and harder to accomplish.
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Found the little critters! :thumbsup: If you put your elbow behind your head they stand out. Look like ribs, but aren't actually in line with the proper ribs.
Doing the above exercise with straight arms (just shrugging at the shoulder joint) really works them.
Thanks a bunch!
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The thing about exercising your postural muscles is that you aren't trying to get any movement. Correct activation will feel like you are creating tension, which is exactly what you are doing.
The fibres in movement muscles are arranged longitudinally - in series. Contraction produces large amounts of shortening of muscle length, and therefore large amounts of movement. Postural muscle fibres are arranged in parallel (sometimes in a kind of chevron arrangement I think) - contraction produces almost no movement, but creates a tension across the points of muscular insertion.
so, yes, it is possible to isolate these muscles, but initially 'activation' is only what what you are looking for; you need to be able to feel and voluntarily produce the contraction without other muscles working. But it is difficult, and without feedback from someone who knows what to look for, and can spot compensations from other muscles, i'd be very surprised if anyone can isolate these muscles effectively.
Another point to note is that because of the fibre arrangement, the postural muscles are very sensitive to position. Basically, if you don't have correct alignment at the joint you are trying to stabilise, the postural muscles aren't going to work. Therefore, activation of postural muscles must be preceeded by postural education and correct alignment. Again, you're going to need somebody who knows what they are talking about to guide you.
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Huffy gave me the 'push up against a wall' exercise for the same recruitment problem. I can't see how doing this one armed would be any better than two. After a few sessions of this I was aware of serratus anterior firing and then moved on to theraband work.
Only the cool (injured) kids use a theraband
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have just tried the push up against a wall thing. Doing it 1-armed forces your shoulder stabilisers to work - the thing is that you have to make sure you are not twisting into or out of the movement, but keeping yourself parallel with the wall. It's also important not to arch your back.
A good starter exercise is to get down onto hands and knees, again make sure your lower back isn't too arched, lift one arm in front of you, but making sure that side of your body doesn't drop at all.
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Thought I should report back some good rehab news.
Scap pressups really seem to work. I've been doing 15 x3 everyday for 2 weeks now and the whole area feels so much better. The key is to make sure your shoulders are lowered (i.e. not near your ears). Even if it's not the best exercise to do, it really gets the blood flowing to the right areas for repair.
I've combined this with rotator cuff theraband and pullups without using your elbows.
I realise now that my problem was resorting to a 'shoulders forward and up' position whilst doing things like pullups. It felt stronger at the time. It isn't, just leads to :'(
I've seen an exercise which involves leaning and pushing against a wall with cloth on your hands and moving them up and down against the wall. I'm thinking this makes the postural muscles maintain their posture rather than trying to work them in a dynamic way? Those turkish get ups look good as well as long as you don't use a too heavy weight and crush yourself :(
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Scap pressups really seem to work.
Sounds like you’ve made a good start. To reinforce what sausage has said, the main job of serratus is to hold the scapula steady in its ideal orientation as muscles like latissimus are pulling hard. Currently your scapula is moving too much (winging). You want to stop this and you need to train both the appropriate muscles (eg serratus, lower traps.) and train them the appropriate way (to hold the scapula still, not to move it). So the way to train is to focus on holding the scapula still whilst applying a force that will tend to make it wing but stopping before any winging happens. This means doing the elbow bending component of the press-ups (etc.) but not moving the shoulder-scapula back and forwards.
Huffy gave me the 'push up against a wall' exercise for the same recruitment problem. I can't see how doing this one armed would be any better than two.
I think doing press-ups one-armed has two definite advantages and one speculative one:
It is easier to control the amount of force going through shoulder, no chance of favouring the other arm subconsciously. Also, you can use the free hand to feel the various muscles involved and check whether they are working (or not). Most people find it hard to know whether serratus is working or whether pecs. is taking over without some additional feedback, at least until they have practiced for some time. More speculatively, you have to concentrate on maintaining good ‘form’, as Caesar describes, which in turn is a mild ‘core’ stability exercise in itself. There is some evidence that the stabilizing muscles work as a set, so that engaging e.g. the deep abdominal muscles will encourage the serratus to work (try drawing-in your low abdomen when you do the serratus push-ups).
You can progress the exercise in a number of ways: do the push-up with your hand on a football or some other unstable surface (the cloth idea sounds good), lean further in which leads eventually to a single-arm push-up on the floor, feet up on a gym ball etc.
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This means doing the elbow bending component of the press-ups (etc.) but not moving the shoulder-scapula back and forwards.
Does that mean not moving your shoulder forward at the top of a pressup and not moving it backwards at the bottom? This is the only way I can control my scapulae!
This is actually the exercise my PT told me to do...
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I think you should ask your physio! I've probably already strayed too far into giving specific advice rather than making general points here.
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So, in a case study kind-a-way what do the professionals on this thread reckon about Ondra's right shoulder in this thread:
http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,9174.0.html (http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,9174.0.html)
@:39-:59seconds
Is that normal? or a sign of trouble to come?
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Serpico,
didn't you advocate Swiss-ball push-ups for shoulder stabilizers? would it be particularly good for working Serratus Anterior?
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pushups, dips and pike pushups on rings plus planche pushups, surely that's the way to go for antagonists -any comments?
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pushups, dips and pike pushups on rings plus planche pushups, surely that's the way to go for antagonists -any comments?
Read the above posts?
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So, in a case study kind-a-way what do the professionals on this thread reckon about Ondra's right shoulder in this thread:
http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,9174.0.html (http://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php/topic,9174.0.html)
@:39-:59seconds
Is that normal? or a sign of trouble to come?
That's a difficult question...
...certainly at times the lower angle of the scapula can be seen coming away from the chest wall - too much of this with the arm in an overhead position would be likely to cause some impingement of the rotator cuff. He ceratinly seems to get the scapula back under control pretty quickly. I think with the forces that pass through the shoulder complex with bouldering, the scapulae will sometimes not be perfectly controlled.
Not sure that's a particularly helpful answer. Whether it's a sign of trouble to come..? I imagine that many top athletes pay some sort of a price for their youthful endeavours as they get older. The shoulder is not really designed for the forces that steep, huggy bouldering produces.
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Found this seems relevent
http://www.theshortspan.com/features/injury/shoulder.htm (http://www.theshortspan.com/features/injury/shoulder.htm)
Theraband exercises for the shoulders were talked about previously.
better late than never
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Thought I should report back some good rehab news.
I've combined this with rotator cuff theraband and pullups without using your elbows.
Just in case I'm missing something.... pullups without using your elbows??
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After reading this thread through I googled scap push ups and decided to try the physio ball excersises here :
http://www.hesfit.com/men/comment/shoulder-dysfunction-neck-pain-and-the-scapula/ (http://www.hesfit.com/men/comment/shoulder-dysfunction-neck-pain-and-the-scapula/)
I'm finding them desperate! Hoping that means i'm on to a good thing?
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Scapular push-up will work Serratus Anterior but I think (from a theoretical perspective) it is better to work Serratus without it shortening or lengthening very much. The push-up against the wall, above, progressing to Front Planks, Side Planks and single arm Front Planks are good for this. Planks are not very specific to climbing though and the final progression should be to learning to work Serratus with the arm in various climbing positions, gastoning and so on.
I'll try and put together some pictures of a typical progression some time.