Shoulder Strength And Scapular Stability – Ball At Wall Drill

Do you have shoulder or neck pain? Do you sit at computer all day? Watch our video and learn to improve your shoulder strength to help!

Often we have difficulty controlling where our shoulders and neck sit for day-to-day posture and activity. Try our simple home exercise to work on controlling shoulder posture. The position of the shoulder blade on the ribcage is key to this.

Hi this is Dana Ranahan at Body Works Sports Physiotherapy. Today I’m here to show you an exercise for shoulder strength.

Do you have rotator cuff pain or difficulty controlling your shoulder position? A lot of us do. From mousing at the computer, we tend to drop our shoulders – or from various sports. In the clinic we see a lot of people that have a dropped shoulder on one side, and this can lead to pain.

The Exercise

  • Grab a little ball, soccer ball or a beach ball, and put it against the wall at chest height.
  • Start with the arm by the side, and focus on pulling the shoulder blade back in space.
  • We don’t want the shoulder to come forward, we want to try and bring it back so that it lines up with our ear.
  • Effectively putting some pressure into the ball and doing little circular motions while trying to maintain the shoulder blade pulled back onto the ribcage.
  • Start with the ball in close, and work to a longer lever position, which is a little more difficult.
  • Usually with this we work with the ball and maintain that position and to work on controlling the shoulder blade.

Do it for 30 or 60 seconds at a time, take a short break and then go again. It won’t be tiring like if you’re lifting weights, but you’ll probably feel a bit of fatigue in the muscles around the shoulder blade.

So give this a try, if you have any other questions, please contact us at 604-983-6616.