Shoulder pain can get in the way of being able to use your arm for day-to-day life. Often shoulder pain is caused by poor coordination of muscles around the shoulder. Sometimes we overuse certain muscles and underuse others, and the muscles we overuse get tight and sore. In this video we’re going to show you proper arm lifting mechanics to try to change that.

So we’ll do two demonstrations. First, Holly will demonstrate what not to do. Then she will show proper arm lifing mechanics in the second one.

The Exercise

Rest your hand on the wall at shoulder height
Put your other hand on the shoulder you’re working
Slide your hand up the wall. Focus on feeling that shoulder muscle and keeping it from tightening up.
Lower the hand back down again.
If someone has poor scapula rhythm, when they lift their arm they’ll tend to hike their shoulder a little bit, as opposed to controlling it. You want to prevent that.

The purpose of this exercise is to elevate the arm while keeping the shoulder nice and calm. That will make the rotator scapula do more of the work and improve that control.

With this one I’ve found that it’s more a coordination issue than a strengthening thing. Do sets of 6 to 8 depending on whether or not you can keep good form throughout. It’s most important with this exercise that you do it properly as opposed to making sure that you do x number of repetitions.