Shoulder Rehab

Whether you are trying to build muscle for a rounder shoulder to create a V shaped back, strengthen your shoulder for overall peak fitness, stabilize or rehab your shoulders, these basic shoulder exercises are key to your workout routine and when done properly can strengthen the joint and prevent shoulder injuries.

I see this all the time in my clubs; over enthused lifters that want to build size fast, gain muscle and achieve a body building status and appearance too quickly. What happens is they stack on the weights, push through the exercises and sure enough, injuries follow soon after.  Common injuries are; consistent shoulder pain, and tears, inflammation, sprains and strains to the shoulder and rotator cuff.

I’m all for giving 100% intensity to workouts, but we have to be smart; always go lighter first to develop your muscles before you lift the extra lbs. Slowly build your smaller muscles in the shoulder through resistant band exercises first before you lift heavy. Protect your shoulder and rotator cuff, without a healthy shoulder, you wont be able to lift at all!

Warm Up: Jog 800 meters (or 2 lap around the track) , 10 shoulder rolls front and back (add light weights if needed) 5 minutes of jump rope and repeat; 10 shoulder rolls front and back (add light weights if needed) and 5 minutes of jump rope.

Basic Shoulder Workout Routine:

- Begin with resistance band shoulder exercises. These shoulder therapy exercises are key to building the smaller muscles of the shoulder, keep the shoulder intact, and stabilizing and preventing shoulder injuries. This is your shoulder rehab!

Go through each of these exercises and use the right resistance bands for your level. Resistance bands and tubing are inexpensive but if you don’t have access to resistance bands, use light weights (Beginners 2 lbs to Advanced 10lbs):

Deduction (side and front Extension)
Rotation (rolling in and out)
Flextion (side and front)

- If you have a healthy shoulder, continue and do the lifting shoulder exercises:

Shoulder Press
Push Press or
Push Jerk

- Men (Beginners) 45 lbs to (Advanced lifters) 135 lbs
- Women (Beginners) 25 lbs to (Advanced lifters) 85 lbs

- Pick one shoulder lifting exercise. On the minute with a continuous clock running, add an extra rep every minute. Example: 1st min 3 reps, 2nd min 4 reps, 3 min 5 reps… keep going until you can not do the amount of reps within the minute… For example 10 mins and you cant finish 10 reps your number is 9. Post your score!

*To avoid shoulder injury and harmful shoulder pain, go lighter on your weight bar and be sure you have worked up properly to the weight you are lifting. As you continue to add shoulder rehab exercises into your workout routine and are sure your shoulder is strong and healthy, then add weight to your shoulder lifting exercises*

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