In my latest article, I addressed my favourite mobility exercises to improve your squat mechanics (http://www.innerfight.com/squatmechanics/). Therefore, I thought it would be natural for me to this time take a look at my 6 favourite overhead mobility exercises.
One of the biggest struggles for most people is their overhead mobility, and due to the amount of overhead movements we perform in CrossFit specifically, this can cause a lot of injuries if performed incorrectly over and over again. Often bad overhead mobility is caused by bad habits and desk jobs where we simply aren’t exposed to anything overhead. Sitting at a desk crunched over all day with shoulders rolled forward over long durations takes away our ability to move our shoulders into a good flexion and thoracic spine into that extended position.
When we can’t stand with a Barbell/DB/KB overhead in a nice straight line where your wrist, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees and heels are all aligned, then somewhere in the chain something must compensate and take the hit.
When we can’t position ourselves correctly our movements become inefficient. Inefficient movements will limit our ability to express power which keeps us from performing at our best.
The overhead position can be limited by several different factors and I believe that the most common ones are lack of extension of the thoracic spine, lack of flexion in the shoulder, and tight pecs and lats. Everyone is different and there can be many different components limiting your overhead mobility, so keep in mind that below recommended exercises simply are ideas for what you can experiment with.
Below I’ve shared with you some of my favourite mobility exercises to improve your overhead position.
1) Supine shoulder raise
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTfK9QOtBBg
2) Foam roller roll outs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWKLAdxcLxM
3) Shoulder CARs (Controlled articular rotations)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mci1qL9EVEY
4) Floor facing PVC sots press
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg4p6QnbFXE
5) Shoulder flexion drill on medball
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWv4uTfjNR8
6) Lying weighted shoulder rotations
