Shoulder Pain - Shoulder Blade Push ups for Scapular Stability with Jamie Snow

Hi, I’m Jamie from Body Works and I’m here with Holly and we’re going to go through a simple exercise to work on scapular control. So basically what we’re going to do is do a wall pushup. So what Holly is going to is start with her hands at shoulder height up against the wall, she keeps her elbows locked and her shoulders relaxed and down and from this position basically all she’s going to try to do is push her chest further from the wall without using her elbows. So it’s going to be a pretty short range of motion, just pushing herself away from the wall and allowing herself to slide back a little bit. The muscles that you are trying to activate are the serratus anterior which sit in the armpit in front of the shoulder blade and so that’s where you want to try to feel the activation with this one.

How many repetitions would you have them do Jamie? Depending on their ability, I usually start with about three sets of six to eight. With this one, what I try to do is focus more on controlling the movement and doing them well as opposed to saying you need to do X number. The goal for this one is really to feel that control of the shoulder blade and hopefully be able to associate that serratus anterior activation with the control of the shoulder blade. If you have any other questions, check us out online at www.body-works.ca.