This is part one of a series of posts where I want to discuss shoulder range of motion and how it relates to the activities you want to do. Let me be clear from the very beginning… This is NOT an attack on Yoga or Downward Dog, nor is it designed to fear monger people from practicing.
This series of posts is designed to give context for shoulder range of motion as it relates to activity.
I use Downward Dog as an example because my wife Yana is a Yoga instructor and it’s something easily relatable.
But you could replace this exercise or task with others like:
Overhead Pressing
Pullups
Throwing, Serving in Tennis/Volleyball, etc
These are all overhead activities that require force production and stability in that activity.
What we often find with many people is that there has been no means of self assessment or assessment in general before entering activities. We typically just jump right into whatever it is we want to do and hope for the best without establishing a Point A of movement capacity.
When we do this, we leave it completely up to our body and/or nervous system to figure out how to accomplish tasks with the resources that are available. This often leads us to compensatory movement.
I don’t think compensation is necessarily “bad”. Athletes are some of the best compensators and that’s what makes them great! I think that not having options for movement can be potentially harmful over the long term. We need compensations at times, but if our compensation becomes our go to, or if we don’t even realize that we don’t have adequate range of motion, that’s where the problems lie.
When we know better we do better
The American cartoon G.I. Joe used to give a tip at the end of the show and say “and now we know and knowing is half the battle”
If we are armed with a better understanding of our body then we can make more informed decisions about our movements. We can better modify and adjust in order to maximize our positive outcomes.
Where most people get it wrong about this idea of assessing, discussing prerequisites and pointing out lack of range of motion is in their feelings that all movement is good. So many people simply use blanket cliché terms like “Movement is Medicine”, but I would say “Quality Movement is Medicine”. The quality of movement determines the outcomes. For example:
Doing movement that reinforces pain symptoms is not quality even thought it’s movement.
In situations where we lack overhead shoulder range of motion, people often steal from their spine and extend to create more range. This might be useful in a serve during volleyball or tennis. And there are tons of accommodations made in sports that are required to become more effective at the sport. But remember Sports is not inherently healthy.
Sports may have some health benefits, but it’s not synonymous or congruent with health outcomes. Most people leave sports with injury or issues related to their time playing.
Once again, it comes down to options. If I have a volleyball player who has adequate overhead shoulder range of motion then they may place less demands on their spine, but they still will place some on their spine. So as a coach, I’m going to address their spine as well to give them more options for movement and help them maintain the health of their spine in the midst of a sport that’s attempting to make their spine more efficient at doing ONE thing well.
So in this series we will begin in Part 2 by assessing shoulder rotation as it is the fundamental movement of the shoulder joint. Then in Part 3 we will finish off the discussion with an Overhead flexion assessment.
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Part 1: Downward Dog is NOT for ALL Bodies