-: Alright, we're gonna talk about lateral raises
and working that medial delt and the range of motion
that you should be using.
So, when we look at the medial delt,
the first thing I wanna show is that when we look at
how that delt actually comes in and attaches,
that medial delt is gonna come up, right,
and it's gonna attach partially to this portion
of the scapula here and then it's also going to
even reach around to the clavicle a tiny bit.
So it covers a pretty broad section going from the spine
around to the clavicle.
And that will vary from person to person.
So you have multiple structures that this can pull on
which is why the medial delt really is kinda like
three bellies in itself.
So when we look at that we have to understand
well, okay if that's where the delt attaches
and I'm gonna put any sort of load here,
how is that gonna be pulling on the scapula?
What needs to be stabilizing that?
So in this particular position if Adam is doing
a lateral raise here, well this is pulling this way.
So what that means is if I took, this is the wrong scapula
but if you just imagine this being pulled this way.
I only have one side here.
This being pulled this way.
So if we imagine that, well the thing that's gonna
counteract this force is going to be the upper trap
and the rhomboid and the lower trap all together
to be able to coordinate this movement.
They need to be able to work together.
And because the load is more up here,
the thing that's going to function the most
in terms of stabilizing that is actually
going to be the upper trap.
So the first thing you need to understand
is that trying to overly depress the scapula
is going to decrease tension in the medial delt
because it's going to inhibit this guy.
So if I'm trying drive this down, my brain's gonna say,
"Well in order to get this down
these fibers have to let go."
If those fibers don't produce as much tension
then my delt can't produce as much tension
or what would happen is I would end up
doing this to my scapula, which is not a position
that our body is ever gonna allow it to go in right?
So in reality what needs to be happening is this
needs to be rotating.
But keep in mind, I'm saying you don't need to depress
but I'm not saying that you need to do this, right?
So that is different than allowing this to happen, right?
That's the natural rhythm that needs to happen.
So you do need to have tension here.
If you feel it there then possibly that's either
just the way your motor pattern's set right now
and you need to be able to, okay
maybe you're over contracting there because you're not
very good at stabilizing, you're not very good
or you're used to flinging things.
The other thing is, well maybe this even,
regardless of how big it is, is kind of a weak area for you,
whether that's neurologically or musculature-wise.
So you're gonna feel that because that's just
the weakest link in the chain.
So feeling lateral raises in your upper traps
isn't necessarily bad.
Over depressing is gonna decrease output
and create poor motor patterns.
You're basically gonna train yourself to stabilize
that shoulder joint less over time which is gonna cause
AC joint issues in the future, decreased tension
in the muscle.
And what you'll have is that you won't really make
any gains of them, we'll say sarcoplasmic.
So some people they'll just end up doing a ton
of these exercises poorly and they build up
some sugar in here because there's just metabolic stress
to all of the tissue around.
But two days of low carb and they realize
they actually haven't accrued any new muscle tissue.
If anything they maybe even lost it.
So we wanna make sure that we know what's supposed to
stabilize that movement.
The other thing is I wanna talk about
restricting this movement by actually
putting something here.
So a common mistake we see is people doing motions
where they're taking the arm and they're moving it
in this plane.
So you can see even though this can't move,
you can just see all this rotation that's going on
in Adam's shoulder.
So imagine if he lays on a bench.
So depending on the width of that bench
and the width of the person, that bench could be in here
and it could be jamming into this portion
of the joint, not letting it upwardly rotate.
It could be smashing up here, just restricting the movement
and not providing, because the ribcage is not flat
it's kind of round so the scapula kinda
if you can tell it needs to roll this way
'cause it needs to track along the ribcage.
So when you lay down and you do something like this,
what you do is you jam up a lot of the tissue,
you possibly jam up the scapula directly
and all of that's going to lead to decreased output.
But it will also lead to increased sensation.
So anytime that this can't move like it's supposed to,
so if Adam were doing a lateral raise here
and I jam this up.
If you guys can see there's this little space here.
When I get to this point there's really not
that much movement before this starts to run into that.
So when this isn't able to move efficiently
what's gonna happen is everything around this joint
is gonna get extrasensory feedback.
That's the body's way of saying, "Hey Dummy,
whatever you're doing, you need to be really
careful because this isn't good for us."
So you will feel, oh man I really feel it there.
Well yes you feel it there because your body's saying,
"Hey, what are you doing there?"
You just can't discern the difference between
that sensation and oh, that's a good contraction.
Hopefully you guys all eventually get there
and you understand the difference between,
oh this is a good solid contraction versus
this is my body telling me that joint is compromised,
and so everything around it is getting a lot of
sensory feedback from being hyper-aware
of all of that tissue.
So this gets jammed then this starts
running into each other.
If you imagine the sternum running off of this side here,
all of that stuff's gonna start getting jammed in there.
So not only am I pinching that tissue,
I'm basically creating a poor motor pattern
where it's going to say, "Alright, if this
is being jammed, I actually need to decrease
tension that medial delt to take off some of that
jamming tension."
So what I'm gonna do then is alright, well if that
needs to go but I still need to lift,
I'm gonna try and fight the scapula in this way.
So I'm gonna end up actually trying to do more
of the work with the scapula stabilizers,
less with the medial delts over time.
So one of the worst things that you can do
for your shoulder health is all these exercises
where you're laying supine or on your back on a bench
and trying to go through these movements
because there's simply too much rotation
that needs to be allowed.
You're better off doing exercises where you're actually
chest supported to support all of this position
so that you can focus on that.
And that's one of the reasons that we use chest supported,
lateral raises.
We use standing lateral raises, we use seated
but nothing where there is a pressure point
or anything that would limit that rotation on the back.