Scapular Stability

On this week’s episode of the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast, we break down scapular stability: what it is, why it matters, and how weak scapular control can contribute to shoulder pain, poor posture, rotator cuff issues, and stalled progress in the gym. We discuss common signs of instability, the connection between the scapula and shoulder health, and practical exercises you can start incorporating into your warm-ups and programming today. Whether you’re currently dealing with shoulder issues or just want to move and lift more efficiently, this episode covers the foundations of building stronger, more stable shoulders.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the Stronger Than Your Boyfriend Podcast. A podcast for anyone into fitness. Especially for all of you who have shitty posture still. We are Heather and Katie, owners of FarPath Fitness, here to help you sift through the bullshit and toxic misinformation that permeates the fitness industry. Today we're gonna talk about scapular stability.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yes. What is that? I feel like people have no idea what that means.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Yes. So scapular stability refers to the ability of the muscles surrounding your shoulder blade or your scapula to control and maintain position and movement on the rib cage. So the scapula acts like a foundation for your shoulder function, basically. And if you can't properly position your scapula in certain movements, um, then your arm can't efficiently or effectively move overhead specifically, but also in various directions without injury. So it's really important to work on scapular stability, which is basically working on the muscles around your scapula to make sure that they have the proper both mobility and stability needed to help your shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Yeah. And you can talk to any physical therapist who sees shoulder injuries. I mean, most of what they're doing is strengthening the scapula area to stabilize that shoulder joint. So there's also that. But for sure. Yeah. So which kind of leads me into talking about why scapular stability training is important. Well, one for life, but for your strength training. So obviously it is strength training, but for the rest of your programming and the rest of your movements. So these are your postural muscles, right? They're very important. And not just because your grandma used to tell you to sit upright because you look like you were slouching, it's to help and aid and make your compound movements more efficient. So it all it will help you to maximize, especially when we're talking upper body pressing movements. It'll help maximize that force transfer in the upper body during these compound movements, like the bench press or overhead press. So your arms, you're pushing a lot of force into the barbell or dumbbells or whatever you're using, but you think of the scapula area as the anchor for doing so in order to transfer the force efficiently, which means essentially that you're reducing the risk of injury to do that. Because we can all just hoist and you know, hoist whatever weight over our head and thrust it in whatever manner possible, but you're probably gonna get injured doing that. But if you are thinking about engaging your scapula, which I tell people all the time when we're doing pretty much everything, you're gonna significantly reduce the risk of injury. And we're talking about, you know, it's obviously on your back, the scapula. When we're doing pulling movements like pull-ups, lap pull downs, rowing, etc., this will maximize the engagement in those muscles. Because, you know, we've talked about this in a lot in the past. A lot of people don't connect to those muscles well. So if you strengthen it, you're able to obviously, you know, work and focus on feeling it. So, you know, uh if I have someone who can't connect to the lats while they're doing a lat pull down, let's say, they feel it in their shoulders. And that's not what we're going for. We need to help feel it in the lats. And if you're doing a lot of pulling movements and you're rounding your shoulders and you're not engaging your the muscles in your scapula area, you're probably gonna eventually have a rotator cuff impingement because you're just doing too much excessive internal rotation. So, again, you know, it's very important to train that. It's very important to think about keeping it engaged, like we almost think of it as like, you know, your second core. You always want to keep it engaged. Like we always want to keep our core engaged for most movements. And also, another kind of side note, if you have a weak scapula, this is a big part of the reason why you're not getting full pull-ups yet.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

So train that. Yeah. I have seen a lot of folks in the past, we've helped clients with like they'll be able to almost do a pull-up. Um, but and sometimes it's just one side, like, or if you can do a pull-up and or you can do a pull-up with a band or whatever it is you're doing, and one side is like kind of going up first and the other shoulders like internally rotating, or both shoulders internally rotating. It could be either one. Well, that that is all due to this for the most part. Like, we have fixed that by working on scapular stability. So we'll go over some exercises, but like dead hangs, like single arm hangs, uh, overhead carries, things like that. So if you work on being able to actually hold the position and stabilize, um, it will allow you to actually do an effective pull-up. So we'll review that in a little bit though. But um that a lot with pull-ups, right? Yeah, it's like shifting to the right side. Uh-huh. Yep. And usually that just means one side needs a little more attention. It's usually around scapular stability. Yeah. Absolutely. So signs that you need to work on this. Uh, we just mentioned one, right, with your pull-ups. Um, also winging. So I don't know. I'm trying to think of what exercise this would be in. But in general, like if you've ever seen a bodybuilder do a um like a lap pose, like a like a back pose with their lats. Yeah. Um, the first time you learn how to do that, like every single person can't do it because they like wing their scapula out. So it's like their scapula are like pointing out and they don't know how to engage their lats properly, so that that flattens out. Um, so that is that is just something that takes time and control. But this is one of the things that we're doing when we're working on that. So that's just like a visual representation. Yeah. Yeah. Um, also shrugging during overhead work, like if you're pressing overhead and you're using a lot of your traps and not like you can't keep your shoulder down, that's a sign that you need to work on it. Um, sometimes just like a nagging shoulder like issues could be it. Weak lockout. So if you have, if you're just like really weak on specific parts of your lift and the lockout is part of it, it could be this, it could be triceps as well, but also it could be this. Um, tension in your neck, clicky shoulders, issue with keeping your back involved during hanging, even. So maybe it's not even pull-ups, but just like hanging off a bar. Like when you hang off a bar, there's a difference between just grabbing on and like pulling your shoulder out of its socket and hanging, right? Yeah. And engaging your back and getting the scapular to go down and depress. That is when they're actually like the muscles are engaged there. If you can't do that, we need to work on this. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

That is, I mean, and kind of a side note with the hanging. That's step one when I'm training someone on how to get a pull-up. Yep. That is literally the bottom position. So you have to be able to hold yourself there for a little bit. So engage, not just a passive hang.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Exactly. Yep, exactly. So the key muscles involved around scapular stability, we have the serratus anterior, we have the trapezius, the upper, middle, and lower fibers might all be involved in some way, the rhomboids, these all work together. And when they work together well, your scapula can move smoothly and stay anchored against your rib cage whenever you're doing an arm movement. If they're weak or they're uncoordinated, like the timing is off, that's when your scapula will like wing outward, tilt abnormally, and put stress on your shoulder joint. And this is where the rotator cuff comes in, right? Because a lot of a lot of people have rotator cuff injuries. And a lot of it is that they don't know how to um to stabilize the scapula and get what needs to be done to protect the rotator cuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

So the rotator cuff is four muscles, sits muscles, superspinatus, infasp, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis, sits. Yeah. And they wrap around your shoulder joint and they keep the ball of the upper arm seated in the socket. So you can imagine if your scapula on your back isn't stable, that rotator cuff has to work even more and compensate, which is a common issue and why we see like strain and pain impingement and like tears.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah. I also think people might know how to engage those scapula muscles without as much load as they're doing. So rephrasing that they can engage it with no weight, but once they start pushing the weight overhead, not engage it anymore. And then I'll have to hurt their egos and say, well, we need to drop the weight down because you're gonna hurt yourself if you keep doing that over time. You know, it's almost like overloading the scapula too much to where it's not strong enough to hold it. So again, then your rotator cup is gonna start overcompensating, and then you're gonna strain it. It's it's so inevitable you're gonna strain it. You have to like your shoulder joint, is it's a ball, and I mean it you rotate it around. It's so I would I don't want to say it's it's injury prone, but if you if you fuck it up, you'll injure it. Like there's no like, oh, that was a close one. You probably will. So it's a little bit easier to to injure like a ball and socket joint where it's able to rotate fully.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah, if you can do a movement that like with no weight and you can keep your keep everything in the right place, you can put your arm overhead, you know, you don't have any weight, but then when you add a certain amount of weight, it something doesn't work. Sometimes people, I feel like sometimes people who are really strong think it's um a mobility issue. Yeah, they're like, oh, I'm not mobile enough to do um uh uh let's say like a push press or something, right? And in reality, it's a functional capacity issue. Yeah, like if you can do it without the weight, you can do it. You just have to build up your functional capacity and your stability and your strength in order to do it. Like it's not necessarily mobility. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah. I mean, you think of mobility as owning bigger ranges of motion, like being able to be strong in bigger ranges of motion or in full ranges of motion. So you know you're probably right. It's probably more like a body. I mean, not stereotype, but a lot of those bodybuilder bros, if you watch them do an overhead press, one, their muscles are so fucking big that they can't, but it's like a it's a mobility issue. They can't lock the they can't even go into full extension overhead or full shoulder flexion. So, and that's not necessarily good for the the rotator cuff. Yeah, you're gonna be able to bring it through full ranges of motion. I mean, that's the safest for any movement in any joint. So totally, totally. Okay, let's talk about what exercises to actually do to add to your routine. Yeah. If you've ever had a shoulder injury, you've probably seen most of these in your uh physical therapy sessions, but I think these are and we can, you know, you can these into your routine when where possible, but I would definitely say as far as uh, you know, uh an upper body pressing or prior to upper body pressing, let's start to add these in, or even do them as like working sets in your program. But we'll go through six. I think these are probably the top six. You can have top ten if you want, but we like these. First and foremost, scapula pull-ups. Now, a quick caveat to this is if that you can't hang from the bar, you're gonna have to start with hangs and just like those active hangs where you're hanging from a bar and you're able to retract and depress your scapula and hold it. But from there, that's when you want to add in the scapula pull-up. So it's pretty much just you're in a hang. You start from that passive hang and then you engage. So retract, depress your scapula down, and then come forward. So you're just making that hold into reps. And this again is also part of my pull-up training for people to build strength to do full reps, regardless of you know, they're injured or not. This is just what I'm gonna add into the routine. And if you can do pull-ups, I'm probably adding this into your routine just to make sure that everything is is good, everything's healthy. We're not muscling our way through pull-ups either.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

So if you don't know what this looks like from what we're saying, we will have a blog eventually and some videos associated with this. We also have like a whole pull-up routine blog that we can link to, and you'll see scat pull-ups in there. So we can show you a video of what this looks like. But your elbows are not bending. I want to be clear on that. Like people are like trying to use their biceps for this, and it's no, we want to use the muscles on your back. So yes, your arms are locked out, fairly locked out. I mean, they're not hyperxtended, but you know, they're pretty much straight, and you're still moving your body up and down slightly by just using your back.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

That is what I yell people at for the elbows, yeah. People for during the scap pull-ups. Totally. It's really only the mistake that I see, but it's a bit another drill like this, which will help build strength for your push-ups, but also this could be like a pre-step to scap pull-ups because it it'll you're not doing it from a full hang position. You might be able to stabilize more with your hands on the floor. But scap, scap pushups, scapula push-ups, I mean, they're they're definitely harder than they than they sound or than they look to, but it is a good way to figure out how to protract the shoulder, which is basically just pulling the shoulder blades forward while keeping your arms straight and then retracting. You're not necessarily may might be depressing the scapula down a little bit, but it's more so like step one, we're gonna figure out how to pull the shoulder blades forward and then engage the shoulder blades or engage the scapula muscles as you pull back. But so you're you're set up in a push-up or in a tall plank position, which I did not say, but this is this is like the horizontal version of the one we just talked about, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

So, like a scap pull-up is kind of about uh elevation and depression of your shoulder blades, whereas a scap push-up is about retraction, yeah, and protraction. So you're gonna learn all four movements in these two exercises, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Yeah. And again, this is such a good strength builder, too. When I have someone who wants to do a push-up, this is part of the routine. Yeah. And push-ups are easier to get than pull-ups, but still, I mean, this is also something I'll keep in just for people who want to build that push-up, pull-up strength. Like this is a good check-in movement. This is a good accessory movement for that, too. So okay. Next, this is almost like a three for one kind of move. Yeah, we've all seen it. It's a very common physical therapy move. The prone Y's, T's, and W's. So it's exactly like it sounds. You're just literally making those letter shapes with your arms. So you're lying down, chest supported on a bench. And usually the the cadence of this is you do a Y. So you're bringing your arms up like a Y shape. I like to tell people thumbs towards the ceiling for that. And then a T. So arms like a T, so that's more rear delt, right? So it's all engaged. Y is gonna hit, you're gonna have to do the a little bit of depression because you don't want it to all be trap. You want to be able to stabilize with your scapula more, but you are gonna get some traps, but that's more the elevation depression, the T, that's scapular retraction. And then the Y, so that's like uh the W. Oh, the W, the W, sorry. So the Y, your arms are gonna be closer to your head. The W, you're out a little bit more, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Because that's your elbows are bent, right? I'm trying to remember what a W is.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Oh, yeah, maybe they are.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

I think so. Yeah, I think it's like this. Wait, hold on, I'll show you.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that. Uh huh. You're right, you're right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

So then, yeah, because in that position, now you have your full depression, right? You're just focusing on retraction because your scapula are down. Yeah. You're right. We should link video. We'll have videos. It's really hard to explain these. Yeah, we'll have videos.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

You really should watch it. But yeah, normally what I see is like you'll do one Y rep, you'll do one T rep, then you'll do one W. Um, and I'll have clients do this, and you know, if they're strong, I'll have them do like hold light weights, but you probably won't need weights for any of these, really.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

So Right. Yeah, and if if you do use weights, they're probably light. Even strong, strong people, I guarantee you're not doing more than I think the most I've seen on this is maybe eight to ten pounds. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

And that's for someone 220-pound man, like yeah, but or someone who, you know, they train this all the time. Like, yes, I don't know, they're doing like crossfit or not crossfit shit, but like maybe um calisthenics or something. Uh calisthenics or Olympic lifting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So totally. Okay, next one. Banded face poles. Doesn't necessarily have to be with the band, but it could be with the cable. But I like the band for this. So you can and you can do either banded face pulls or pull apart, just depending on what you have access to. But for the face poles, you just set the band on a rack if you have access, or a wall or a whatever you can wrap it around and slip. Yeah, a pole, something like that. Not a wall, a pole. That's what I was thinking of. And just grab the ends of it and you're gonna pull. So you're gonna pull towards. I like to tell people like pull towards your nose because your the people's first, you know, their initial reaction is to shrug their shoulders because they're pulling their elbow so high. But I have to cue them. Like, we're gonna pull the shoulder blades back and down while you do this, so we're not shrugging and mostly using the traps. Yeah. Just like that. I'm watching, yep. Sorry, I'm doing them in my yeah, and even just what you did, like you went higher. You can also do a different, like slightly different variation, go lower.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Yeah, I feel like when I go higher, I have to use my traps. I don't, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I think those are two movements, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Cause I I'm mostly thinking also about um with the cable. I see a lot of people do these on the cables. Yeah. And for those, I always tell people to keep their elbows high. And I think if you tell people to keep their shoulders down, it's really hard for them to bring their elbows high. I I guess I have a question about this. Are is your shoulder internally rotated for this one? I yeah, I mean, at the when you're doing like really high elbows.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah, I would say yeah, especially at the well, I guess would you call this the top of the movement or the bottom of the movement when your elbows are bent? Yeah, I would say that this is an interesting one. It always feels weird to me. If you're able to engage your scapula, I don't know if it's fully internally rotated, but it definitely is, right? But that's not a bad thing. I mean, we're gonna trim that.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

I think this comes back to someone asked us on a QA the other day about internal versus external rotation on was it a press or a jerk or something? And it's an interesting like argument or not rotation, that was uh uh elevation or depression.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Remember that? That I think it was Aaron. Um, yeah, there's a whole bunch of we're getting really technical in this stuff too, because I feel like when you do want to have elevation and you do want to like use your traps a little or you know, give yourself the extra inch in the deadlift or whatever these little cues are, you have to know the rules before you break them. I think the average person can't do anything without retraction and depression. And then once we master that, then we can talk about okay, here's the little tweak you can do to add a little bit more, you know, ability in your shoulder during this movement. But I don't even know if it's worth touching on because that's too advanced for a lot of people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah. Also, most clients don't give a shit. They don't care about that. They don't care about that. They're just like there, they're like, you tell me what to do. I don't know. That's so true. Like it for you, maybe as a trainer, like you want that for them, but you could just give them a cue to not confuse them. Like bring your elbows down a little bit or whatever. So, yeah, most people don't care. Yeah, that's true. Some people do, yeah. Okay, next one. Serratus wall slides. Now, before I explain this, do you like to do this one with a foam roller or do you like to just slide the hand on the wall?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Are these like wall angels? Is that what these are?

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Well, I'm thinking or different. When you're facing a wall and then you're going up like this.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Oh, that's a different one. Yeah, that's a totally different one than what I'm thinking of.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah, that's two. That's good for shoulder mobility in general. Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

But the not necessarily what we're talking about. Yeah. I guess I mean I know what you're talking about now. I can see it. So you face the wall, you put your arms at like a almost 90 degrees.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

And you can either put a foam roller under them or you can just use your arm on the wall and go up.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, if you have something that slides up. I like I like ball. And I've never tried it with a foam roller, to be honest. Foam roller, it's it's kind of annoying because it rolls down your arm, but it's easier for people to move up and down. Move it. Yeah. So it's almost like the the hand on the wall is the next step. Because there's also you're you're requiring more mobility with it because you're going your your hands are just closer to the wall. It's hard to explain, but you have to just see it and do it and feel it. But you're stabilizing also at the top. I mean, you're using those serratus muscles, which is like the gills. The bodybuilding, like call me. The gills. I know, they look so cool. They do. It's like, is it technically part of your lat? Is it like part of the lats?

SPEAKER_00 21:27

The serratus? Uh oh my god, where does it attach? You're gonna ask me questions when I'm people love having the gills. I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue, continue.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Okay. But yeah, so these are good. I mean good for obviously shoulder mobility in general, but again, you've probably seen this a lot if you've done PT for your shoulder. But I think this is a good, really good warm up prior to a heavy pressing day. I mean, all of these. Are, but I, you know, just to active and you have to be intentional about this one. Don't just like slide your arms up and down on the foam on the foam roller. Like, really think about engaging your upper back muscles, those muscles, as you're lifting the arms overhead. That'll kind of teach you how to stabilize as you're, you know, doing that with a barbell or dumbbell. So, okay, I feel like you have an answer.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yes. So the lats do lie over the posterior part of the serratus muscle, but they're not like obviously the same muscle. We know that. But the the fingers or the digitations of the serratus anterior sit directly next to and often can mesh with the origin points of the lats and the external obeliques. So they're basically like they're um, they have points of attachment on the scapula and they have they can kind of it's called interdigitate. They can like mesh together along your rib cage. So that's why they feel like they're like somewhat attached because they they can be like they can the insertion points can mesh a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

You know, long story short, or thanks. Everything's connected. Yeah, connected on that bot on the body. Yeah. Okay, last one, overhead carries. These are fantastic. I love overhead carries, or you could even just do overhead holds in place. If you don't have a place to walk around, but oh man, you could do this. One arm at a time, both arms holding two dumbbells in your arm, in your hands, with your arms locked out over hell overhead is so much harder than people actually realize. Because if you do it, if you fucking feel it, because you'll start to feel your lower back arching, you're not gonna feel your core engaged anymore. I mean, this is one of my favorite moves to do, and I'll just throw these in programming for like, you know, if everything's healthy, we're gonna do heavy holds or carries. So, I mean, you could start with just one arm overhead. It's a little bit easier, easier to just focus on one side at a time if you're a little bit newer to this, and then you can progress to two kettlebells, two dumbbells. I mean, you could hold a barbell overhead. I have some people do overhead barbell holds, you know, like the top of an overhead press. I think it's great. I think it's fantastic. I think it forces you to engage your core, not only your core and your your scapula muscles, your glutes too, like your whole body's engaged during that.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

So you don't have to, so you can just hold it, you can carry it, meaning like you would walk with it, right? Yeah, but you also, if you don't have space to do a carry, like my coach used to program uh marching, overhead marching. Yep, and that was a really good thing. All of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I do all of it. I think they're all like slightly different. So sometimes I'll have people just hold it sometimes and then maybe load it. Sometimes I'll have people march in place because it's a little bit different than walking. And then walking, I'm like, well, you gotta go lighter and we're gonna go really fucking slow with your walk. Don't run. I feel like when I see people do farmers carries, they're like almost trying to run to get it over with.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

That depend it probably also depends on if like who who you're talking to. People who anybody who's like scene strong, man, that's probably what they're used to. Because yeah, those people are timed, but we're not working on that. You're training for an actual sport, yeah, you don't have to have good form.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

So those decks I think are great. Yeah. I mean, they deserve a lot more, but we don't need to be able to do it. Those are good six shit.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Yeah, totally, yeah. And if you I would say the um almost all of those, maybe not the I don't think the serratus wall slides or the um push-ups would be good for this, but every other one you can do one-handed, right? Like you can do a single arm hang or a single arm scat pull-up when you get strong enough.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

I've had clients do single arm scat push-ups too. Really?

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah, that's impressive.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah, I mean very strong, but it's yeah, that's pretty that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Now I want to try it. Yeah, that's cool. The the wall slide, yeah, you're right. The wall slide too, you'd rotate too much.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Yeah, you can easily do that and rotate your torso and it wouldn't really do much for you. So yeah, that's a good progression for that.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yeah, especially if you're finding, like we talked about earlier, with the pull-up, one side's off. That's where you'd want to train some of this stuff with one arm because what you might be compensating and you can't you can't tell sometimes with both arms.

unknown 26:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Well, it is crazy to see though the difference between your dominant side and your non-dominant is most people, if they have the strength to do pull-ups, they'll they're able to hang with one arm. They a lot of times they can hang all day on their their right, which most people are right-handed. That's just an example. And then their left, they could do like maybe three seconds, not so it's I have this is discrepancy.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Semi semi-related. I have tattoos on my fingers on my left hand, and I got a tattoo on my left middle finger, like right where you would usually put a ring, right? If you want to wear like a cool ring, not like a like a stupid engager ring or something, but like a ring, you know, because I like to wear like pointer finger and middle finger and pinky rings a lot. Uh-huh. But I have a tattoo on my middle finger on my left hand, so I don't put a ring on it because there's a little moon there and it's cute. Yeah. Well, my right hand middle finger is fat because, and not fat, it's like more muscular, right? Because I use it more. Funny. So I can't get a middle finger ring the right size over that knuckle. Like, but it doesn't, so I yeah, it's really annoying. So all my middle finger rings only fit on the middle finger that has the tattoo. Yeah. That your fingers will be different sizes too.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

That's really funny. I'm looking at my fingers and I'm like, yeah, mine is my right.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Like mine definitely are bigger. And that's just uh it's not everyone, but I've noticed that a lot with people as I wear more jewelry and stuff. Like my rings are my fingers are just different sizes on my right hand because I use that hand all the time.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

I got a little sausage finger, so it's hard to tell. They're all just chunky. I love it. Like chunky pingy.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Okay. So uh, like Katie was saying, these are great things to throw into your warmup, but they're also great things to actually train. So obviously, if you've never done any of them, throw them in your warm-up first, you know, get used to them a little bit. Um, and then once you get, you know, to a point where, okay, let's throw them into sets and then eventually add load. Um, so you're actually training them within your program. The best thing to do, obviously, is have a trainer help you program them, especially if you're not sure where the weakness is or which ones you should be doing and you only have a specific amount of time, yeah. The trainer can help you figure that out.

unknown 28:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Especially because a lot of these movements, they are good to learn movements like or to help train strength for movements like pull-ups and push-ups. But if you're advanced, I can use these and progress them to where they're an accessory movement to get even stronger. So, like you can do so many different variations of those too. So, yeah, coach would is definitely helpful.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah, totally.

unknown 28:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Then on the other hand, be honest with yourself about that impingement that's not going away. Maybe you need to do some physical therapy too.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah, yeah. Definitely a thing to consider is how long has this been happening? Have I tried things like what's going on? Is it still a problem? Maybe it's time to seek out a physical therapist.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

You know, I wonder what is the I feel like shoulder has gotta be shoulders. It's gotta be the most common injury site. Yeah, probably low back is probably up there, but I'm like low back. Yeah, well, and it's not it's bigger because it's people a lot of people have a lot of lower back chronic pain because of sitting too much or something, but yeah, you're probably right, but the impingement, it's just so common.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Yeah. I you know what? I think the knee might be when I AI overviews said it's the most frequently injured joint, which is interesting, and then the lower back and then the shoulder. But I don't know, this is AI overviews, and I'm yeah, like, okay, it depends on who you ask and what they're talking about. But I think one one of the reasons the knee it might be because we're talking about like we're adding in like athleticism and sports and yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Or by run. Yeah. And yeah, they're probably taking from a cohort of athletes, which yeah, I mean if you're doing high-level shit, you're gonna be more prone to injury. But I mean, I do see a lot of knee injuries just from running.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Yeah, there are a lot of people who just run run without strength training, which causes a lot of knee issues.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

So well, even people who do strength training have a lot of knee issues with running just too much. That's true. Oh, there's also that, but okay.

unknown 30:19

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

If you want to know how to program all this stuff, hit us up. We coach people. We sure do. Yeah. The more you know, the more you know, and you do and then join our Facebook group, join in a boyfriend. Fellows if we do any of these. If you're my client, you definitely do. If you're my online client, in in person, but most of the people in the Facebook group are if they're my client, they're online. So you know what. You know these movements, you've seen them many, many times. Yes.

unknown 30:51

Okay.