Brian Schiff’s Blog

I find that many patients and clients lack dynamic shoulder and pillar stability. Assessing this with tall plank arm taps or tall plank Y reaches can tell you a lot about one’s ability to stabilize and resist gravity in single arm support. In light of the insufficiencies I see, I prefer to use exercises that encourage integrated shoulder, torso and hip stability.

Improving shoulder and torso stability is important for overhead athletes, wrestlers, MMA competitors as well as those with any shoulder instability. This exercise is a great way to build dynamic stability and postural stability.

Click here to read my entire online column for PFP Magazine on this exercise including progressions and regressions. I think you will find this movement both challenging and rewarding for you or your clients.

This exercise is intended for advanced users who want or need to increase shoulder, core and hip stability, while also seeking to improve hip disassociation. The core must function in an anti-extension and anti-rotation fashion throughout which is a safe and effective way to target those muscles while also providing a demanding strengthening exercise for the upper body and hips.

With that said, sufficient upper body strength is a must for this exercise.  Clients with wrist pain/weakness or elbow and shoulder pathology should only perform this exercise provided they have are symptom free and have moved through the following progressions. In many cases, it is best to start with tall planking and leg lift progressions on the floor before trying this exercise.

The video below will review the exercise in one of my latest columns for PFP Magazine.

Many athletes and clients I work with lack adequate pillar and shoulder stability. Whether this is related to acquired laxity, inherent instability or simply a lack of proper muscular control, I think it is important to assess baseline stability in anyone performing overhead lifts, ballistic upper body training and in overhead athletes.

In my clinic, I work with lots of baseball players, swimmers and volleyball players. Most females tend to struggle with hyper mobility (loose shoulder joints) whereas many of my males tend to have soft tissue tightness and in some cases limited internal rotation (GIRD). Both males and females tend to have a need to improve dynamic shoulder and pillar (core) stability to reduce injury risk and optimize mechanics.

The following exercise is one I use to both assess anti-rotational control/stability as well as train the body to resist torsional forces. In the video below, you can see how to assess your baseline strength and stability.

This exercise is very effective in working improving glenohumeral and scapular stability as well as enhancing shoulder, torso and hip stability. In my opinion, athletes with poor stability in this assessment should not perform unilateral Olympic lifting or ballistic overhead training as they may lack the necessary neuromuscular control to execute the proper movement pattern.

I just returned from the Sports Physical Therapy Section’s annual conference in Las Vegas. There were plenty of great presentations from various industry leaders. I thought I would take a moment and summarize a few key points from the conference that may be helpful to clinicians and consumers alike.

The conference theme was the power of innovation. Hot topics covered were blood flow restriction therapy, cupping, dry needling, eccentric loading for tendiopathy, weighted ball training, and kinesiotaping and laser therapy to name a few. Below are some takeaways worth mentioning:

• Blood flow restriction (BFR) training can be used to help reduce muscle atrophy after surgery, improve muscle protein synthesis and provide a way to increase strength with loads as low as 20-30% of 1RM for clients unable to tolerate heavy loading
• BFR is not superior to nor a substitute for high intensity training (need to push weight to see best strength gains), but it can be used as an adjunct to training. It also produces an increase in IGHF1 after exercise.
• BFR should not be used before higher intensity activities such as HIT, plyometrics, SAQ, etc.
• Clinicians and strength coaches should consider Olympic lifting derivatives as an alternative to traditional lifts if there is concern with catch phases or biomehcanical/physical concerns. Examples include high pulls/snatch pulls instead of traditional cleans and snatches.
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Shoulder impingement is a common problem for many clients. Specifically, some clients will suffer from internal impingement as a result of a significant loss of internal rotation range of motion, also known as GIRD (glenohumeral internal rotation deficit). This has been widely researched in baseball players, and it is a common issue for overhead athletes. Of note, it can also impact those doing repetitive overhead lifts.

It is common to see asymmetry in internal range of motion for the dominant and non-dominant arms. For those clients who have a total shoulder motion asymmetry greater than 5 degrees, it becomes more important to resolve internal range of motion deficits based on the current literature. In my previous post, I revealed how to improve soft tissue mobility. In this post, I will review the sleeper stretch and cross body stretch to improve posterior shoulder mobility while increasing internal rotation.

The video below from my column ‘Functionally Fit’ for PFP Magazine will demonstrate how to do these stretches.