Glenn Dawson shows how to fix shoulder pain during push-ups using a water bottle, towel, and resistance band. The three-phase system mobilizes the shoulder joint, builds stability through rotator-cuff and scapular work, then retrains the push-up movement with proper hand placement and depth cues.
If your shoulder hurts while you're doing push-ups, in this video I'm going to show you how to do push-ups without shoulder pain. Follow along, we're going to use these household items. I'm Glenn Dawson with Reset U Fitness, and today we're going to go over— try to fix your shoulder problem without me ever being there giving you assessment. All you're going to need is a water bottle full of water, a towel, a small mini band that you have in your house, and that's it. We're we're going to get to work. This video is gonna be structured in 3 different areas. This is literally what we do at ResetU whenever we do an assessment. The first thing is mobilize the joint, then stabilize the joint, and then reteach movement patterns. So I'm gonna show you how to mobilize your shoulder joint if you have a tight chest, which most people do. Then we're gonna mobilize or stabilize the joint doing a couple of exercises you could do at home to activate the muscles that are not doing their job. And then I'm going to show you how to do a push-up without causing pressure and friction. So the first thing we're going to mobilize is the shoulder joint and the chest. Your chest sprays out like a fan from your shoulder joint and then connects to your sternum or this center bone here. It lengthens and shortens this way, so we need to stretch it. Now we're going to do what's called an active release stretch. I'm going to start with an L on the wall and press my arm into the wall for 5 seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Then I'm going to turn off the wall, leaving my arm on, and stretch the chest. Now you want to do this for 3 rounds. Do not change and alternate sides. Do one side at a time. So imagine it's been 30 seconds. I'm going to press again. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and go back into it and stretch for 30. And you're going to do this one more round. Now that will help stretch and open up the chest. The next thing you have to do is open up internal rotation. My favorite exercise to do for that is a pull row. It is exactly what it sounds like. You're going to keep a straight arm and you're going to row with the other arm and stretch your shoulder capsule just like so. You're going to do this 10 times and stay within your happy range of motion. There's no reason to cause pain in this. You just need to open up the shoulder joint. If either one of these stretches feels like it's aggressive, they're not. They're very basic entry-level stretches. They should not be causing your shoulder issues. It's probably the root cause of your pain when you're doing push-ups in the first place. Once you've done your left and your right side for both stretches, move on to stability. Now that the mobility is taken care of, Next, we're going to work on stability. So there's 3 exercises you want to do to basically get every single part of your shoulder joint to cooperate with you. A laying rotator cuff, which we're going to start with, a scapular retraction, and then a banded champagne. We're going to do all 3 of them together. The first thing you need is a decorative pillow. Lay that down flat. We're going to target our right arm. Whatever arm you lay on is going to be the one that you're targeting. Now next, I'm going to lay down on my side, placing my head on the pillow. Grab a rolled up towel like so, a lightweight between 2 to 3 pounds, or even just a water bottle full of water. And you're going to take your range of motion up and down while you squeeze the towel. So you should have your shoulder joint, elbow joint in perfect alignment, and you're going to rotate just like so from this 45-degree angle. Squeeze and hold and come down slowly to this 45-degree angle. You want to go as slow as possible with this one. You're going to work until you feel the muscle fatigue, meaning it's fired, and we're going to move on to scapular retractions. Next, we're going to do scapular retractions. So you're gonna line up with your hands outside of your mat, basically right outside of your shoulders. You're going to lean forward so that your hands are lined up perfectly with your chest. You're going to push your shoulder blades apart. So you're rounding your upper back and you're gonna hold these muscles beneath your shoulder blades, create stability there, and slowly drop in and pinch your shoulder blades together, just like so. And I want you to do this 10 times. Bringing them together, pushing them apart. Once you've done that, move on to the banded serratus. So now we're going to do our banded serratus exercise, or Champagnes. I'm going to lay on my back, put the band— the lightest band you can find is usually the best one. I'm going to put the band around my wrist and I'm going to pull my arms apart. So that I'm outside shoulder width. I'm going to squeeze and hold with weight in one hand, 5 to 10 pounds, and come up. If you don't have that, just use your water bottle again. And the most important thing is to keep your hands apart as you move. Your hands should be outside your elbows. You should feel this in the back and in the back of the shoulder joint. Alright, so the shoulder joint should be mobile. All the muscles around the shoulder joint should be active and it should be in the best situation it can be for you to do a pushup without pain. You might even surprise yourself with this one. It's pretty cool. Next, what we're going to do is we're gonna show you how to do a proper pushup 'cause most people suck at them. I'm gonna use my band as a guide for where my nose should hit on the ground. I'm gonna go 2 hand lengths from the band. And this second hand length right here is where my grip is going to be. From there, I'm going to open my hands again outside shoulder width, and then I'm going to push the ground down. It's very important, you want to push the ground down, not push your body up. So it's almost like you're pushing away at the same time. And when you do this, you want your nose to push into that marker or band for me. So here we go. You're gonna start here, stable, drop down nice and slow, touch your nose, come up. Nice and slow, touch the nose, come up. At minimum, you should have less pain during your pushup and you might even surprise yourself and have no shoulder pain at all. If that's the case, if we fully fix your pushups, you don't have pain, you have to like and subscribe and share this. Otherwise you are selfish. We just fixed your shoulder. You got to do it. You have to. And we'll appreciate it and keep doing more videos for you. Thank you.
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