[read time <2 minutes + VIDEO]
Living an active life requires healthy shoulders.
When your shoulders aren’t sufficiently strong, one or two things tend to happen:
You feel popping, pinching, or pain inside your shoulders; &/or
Your shoulders feel too tired to enjoy your favorite activities.
These are warning signs that often precede injury. To avoid getting hurt and continue enjoying your active life, start by strengthening deep inside your shoulder.
Most shoulder strengthening exercises--like lifting weights or push ups-- work larger muscles on the outside of your shoulders. But in this video, I explain a simple, safe way to start strengthening deep inside each shoulder:
Experiencing fatigue during this exercise indicates the need for rest. Fatigue may be felt, observed, or both.
The feeling of fatigue can be described as warmth or tightness in a particular area that eventually becomes a burning sensation. In the above exercise, this feeling ideally happens on the back of the shoulder or over the shoulder blade.
The observation of fatigue occurs when the exercise can no longer be completed with good form. Let’s say you are performing the exercise in the above video, and after several repetitions, you start to shrug one shoulder or you allow your forearm to rotate towards the center of your body. (To notice this, observe your reflection in a mirror, or ask someone else to watch you.) A change in your ability to perform the exercise correctly demonstrate fatigue.
Either type of fatigue-- feeling it or observing it-- signals the need to stop and rest from performing the exercise.
For safe, strengthening exercises-- designed specifically for your active life-- work with me. To learn if working together is a good fit for you, schedule a Strategy Session, by clicking here.