3 Ways to Elevate your Shoulder Rehab for Return to Weightlifting

Shoulder pain and injury is the most common for barbell sports, including the Snatch, Clean, and Jerk in CrossFit & Weightlifting. 

Have you ever avoided snatching or pressing due to shoulder pain? 

Have you had days where you’ve felt “better”, but one you touched the bar again, pain flared back up?

There are some things that are essential to the process of returning to weightlifting after shoulder injury. These are important when re-integrating to the barbell lifts, and can help bridge the gap from initial injury and back to full weightlifting, through a systematic process. 

Focus on your Lats

Lats play an essential role in stabilizing the scapula and spine when pulling from the ground. These muscles connect from the lower back and into the shoulder. When overcoming shoulder injury, it’s important to lean how to adequately activate these muscles, & position your shoulders in the set-up position. 

Furthermore, lats can often be a culprit of shoulder pain. Remember, tight lats do not necessarily mean strong lats. Tightness can limit shoulder external rotation during the turnover, and create stiffness in overhead and front rack positions. Stiffness of the lats can restrict overhead positions, and make it difficult to control the turnover of the lift. Sometimes lats are weak, and individuals have difficulty activating them and using them to control the scapula and shoulder during the turnover. 

Sometimes we see faults in the lift such as: 

• impaired shoulder position in the set-up (behind the bar, rounded forward, etc)
• bar leaves the hips/ bounces off the hips forward during the pull 
• Bar receiving position is too far forward; sometimes this mean bar isn’t being pulled up and back during the turnover 

Mastering how to activate your lats from the start to the finish is crucial for resuming weightlifting after a shoulder injury.

When you’re setting up for the snatch, clean, or a deadlift, your shoulders should be pulled BACK and DOWN toward your back hip pockets. Maintain this activation throughout the pull from the ground and to your hips. 

During the drive from the hips and into the turnover, your shoulders will be performing a high pull with the shoulders in an internally rotated position. think about pulling the shoulder blades back while this is happening, to keep tension through internal rotation and then into the turnover into external rotation. This influences stable, strong scapular positions, and keeps the bar close to the body during the turnover. Prioritize stretching and STRENGTHENING your lats to enhance your conquest back to weightlifting. 

Here are some great exercises to incorporate into your training when returning to weightlifting after shoulder injury:

Lat Length + Strength:

•  Eccentric chin ups
•  Palms facing you. From the top of a chin-up, slowwwwwly lower yourself down, all the way into a dead hang for a few seconds. Don’t stop the descent until you are fully in a dead hang position.
•  Banded KB Bent Over Rows 
•  with a band tethered around the head of the KB, stand on the other end of the band. Bend into a hinge position, and perform a row, thinking about pulling your shoulder blade down and back. Try not to rotate your trunk, and make sure your shoulder blade is going DOWN not towards your ears.
•  DB Eccentric Overhead Lat Lengthening 
•  Find a bench. Lean against the bench, with your upper back on it. Feet flat on the floor, torso and hips hovering in the air. Tuck your pelvis so your torso is neutral (aka, don’t sink your hips, and don’t arch your lower back!). Holding a 15lb DB with straight arms, slowwwwwlyyyyy lower your arms overhead as far as they will go. Exhale here. Return and repeat. 

Lat Engagement for the lift:

•  Snatch/Clean Lift-Off
•  Lifting the bar from the set-up position to the knees. The key is to pull the shoulders back and down, keeping it there, while standing through the legs until the bar is at knee height. this works on keeping tension through the shoulders from the initial pull from the ground.
•  Snatch/Clean Pull off Blocks
•  This allows you to work on lat engagement of the lift throughout shortened ranges of motion. Pull the shoulders back and down, then drive through the legs while the shoulders stay tight. 
•  Band-Resisted PVC Deadlift 
•  fasten a band around a rig post, then loop it around a PVC to the middle of it. Hold the in either snatch or clean grip. Face the rig, then back up, where there is tension on the band. Pull the PVC to your shins, pulling shoulders back and down. Keep this pull while you stand up, as if performing a deadlift. Keep the same tension as you return back down to the shin.

Practice Slow Transitions

What?! Yes, you read that right.

SLOW, controlled, tempo practice through movements like the snatch turnover, & behind the neck press, split press, and overhead squat, are underestimated in rehab.

They’re much harder than you think. Especially in early phases of rehab, loading in this way is appropriate for tissue adaptation before introducing faster movement. Training appropriate positional control over sustained time under tension is KEY!

This phase is usually more common after the acute phase of pain and injury, when pain starts to calm down, and you want to wean into the positions of the lift. Sometimes, just moving through positions of the lift allows the tissues to adapt sufficiently; this is because sometimes the tissues are not prepared to move through higher velocities. Your coach or provider can help dose the parameters of tempo and weight to make sure it’s appropriate for your condition. 

Here are some examples of these exercises: 

•  Isolated Turnover 
•  More specific to the snatch. Hold the empty bar with hands in snatch-grip. Hold the bar up by the sternum, your elbows will be bent with the shoulders in internal rotation. Pull the shoulder blades back hard, while trying to turn over into external rotation. The key here is to make the bar move as little as possible. You’ll feel the back of your shoulders and shoulder blades working hard to keep the bar at the same height while transitioning from Internal to External rotation. 
•  Isolated Turnover + press into OHS
  •  try not to press it up, THEN squat. The press and the squat into an overhead squat should be ONE movement. 
  •  This will be slow! 
•  same thing, but this time, pause in the externally rotated position briefly. Then, press the bar up overhead as you descend into an OHS. 

Tempo Squats & Deadlifts are amazing ways to train this as well!

•  Snatch/ Clean Deadlifts, Front Squats, Back Squats, and Overhead Squats
•  these don’t have to be slow, unless adding an eccentric on the return. But they are allowing you to still work on creating tension in the set up position, adding bracing cues, and move through the pull from the floor to the hips and/or move through full ranges of the squat in each relevant lift pattern. 

Thoracic Rotation 

Did you know that thoracic ROTATION aids in enhancing scapular elevation, and is necessary for overhead movements?

This can improve mobility, positional comfort, motor control, and full-range strength in movements such as the overhead squat, press, & front rack… while minimizing compensatory strategies from the shoulder!

If you are experiencing shoulder discomfort and have limited thoracic rotation, make sure this is a part of your early transition back to lifting!! 

Mobility Exercises 

•  Loaded thoracic extension on foam roller 
•  Foam Roller Open Book (with or without band)
•  Wall Windmills
•  Wall Windmill + Lift Off 
•  Kneeling Banded Thoracic Rotation In Quadruped

Loading after mobility

•  Med ball thoracic extensions (kneeling, or in a squat position)
1.  bear hug a med ball. Squat or kneel down (may depend on squat mobility). Round the upper back, allowing the ball to take your back into full flexion. Then, raise the chest all the way up and pause. You will feel the resistance of the ball to keep your shoulders up. 
•  Prone PVC raises
1.  Lay face down, holding a PVC overhead, either wide or narrow grip. Raise it overhead, and pause. 

Ready to learn more? Have specific pain problems that are limiting your performance goals? Czarbell is here to help. Reach out at [email protected], or schedule an appointment with me through the main page of this website, to learn more!