In this instructional video, the presenter explains why a shoulder can become elevated—primarily due to tight, dominant anterior muscles (pecs, upper traps) and overactive upper traps pulling the scapula upward and forward, which creates impingement at the AC joint and clavicle. He demonstrates a simple assessment (overhead squat with a stick) to spot asymmetry, then walks through a four‑step corrective protocol: (1) joint distraction using a low‑positioned resistance band to pull the shoulder back and down, (2) a wall‑based pec stretch performed with 5‑second presses and 30‑second holds, (3) hanging scapular retractions to activate the lower traps (15‑second holds for three reps), and (4) a lying lower‑trap activation where fingertips slide up while keeping the scapula depressed (≈10 slow reps). Each step includes specific timing, repetitions, and cueing. After completing the routine, the viewer is instructed to retest the overhead squat to confirm that the bar path is flatter and the shoulders are aligned, indicating restored muscular balance and reduced impingement.
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Does your shoulder hurt when you do bench press or overhead press? Well, today we're going to talk about the elevated shoulder. Maybe you've noticed like one of your traps is really, really tight and you kind of see a lean in your shoulder. You got an elevated shoulder. Or what we do at Reset U to test this is an overhead squat test with a stick. Sometimes it's an axe if that's all you got lying around, and you press over your head. Now, some people, one shoulder is higher than the other. If that's true, and that's causing your problems, today I'm going to show you how to fix that elevated shoulder. Stick around. So first, how does the elevated shoulder happen? Think about your ball and socket joint, your shoulder, this little humeral head right here, as a happy ball and socket joint that should sit in the center and not have any impingements and do all this cool stuff. But sometimes it gets elevated, starts scratching on those top you know, muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, and your clavicle gets scratched, your AC joint, which is your clavicle, your shoulder blade, all these things can kind of pinch together. And then you get this pinching moment when you, when you lift your arm up. So basically what's happening is the muscles in the front are so tight and dominant, they're pulling the shoulder up and forward. And then this muscle here in this trap is so tight, it's pulling it up. So basically this shoulder that should be down and back starts to go up and forward. So what we're going to do is we're going to mobilize that joint first, then we're going to stabilize it so it doesn't have to come back. Let's go. So first we got to distract the joint, meaning pull it back into alignment. So we're going to use a band like this and we're going to go after the affected shoulder. For me, it's the left one, which is crazy because I had surgery on it. If I would have done this stuff earlier, maybe I wouldn't have this problem. You want to band it lower than normal, so band it like hip height because we want a backwards and down pull. Now you're going to line up the band right on groove in your shoulder. That groove is like your bicep tendon. Now from here, you're going to walk out with the same side leg as the shoulder you're working on. So for me, it's left side, left leg. Press out. You're going to slightly move the shoulder forward. Exhale. And then let that band do its thing. Now I would recommend pushing forward for 5 seconds and then releasing, letting go, letting it pull for 30 seconds. And you can do this for, you know, 3 rounds, just pushing, exhale, and letting it pull back until you start to feel that shoulder go back into the joint where it belongs. All right, so the next thing we're gonna do for your elevated shoulder is stretch out this pec. So what I like to do is come to a wall and make an L. You're gonna press your forearm against the wall and then turn your body off, just like so. Now again, we're gonna go 5 seconds of pressing, 30 seconds of stretching. So again, you're going to press for 5 seconds, then turn your body off and stretch for 30. That way we're letting the muscle release on its own. All right, so the next we're going to do is a hanging scapular retraction. So for this one, you want to grab onto a bar and you literally want to hang. So we're going to grab here. Now, if you don't have enough strength to hold your body, do it on the lower bar and, you know, use your legs and your ankles to kind of hold you up. But from here, you want to hold yourself, let yourself hang. Then you want to pull yourself up using just your lower traps and push your armpits forward. This is going to activate the muscles beneath your shoulder blade that aren't strong enough. You want to hold this in place as long as you can and then release. I would do at least 15-second holds if you can for 3 reps just to strengthen these lower traps. Alright, so the last move we're gonna do is a lying lower trap activator. Now this is to get these tight dominant upper traps to stop activating, get the ones beneath your shoulder blades. That'll pull your shoulder blades down to activate. So lay down flat, place your fingertips next to your ears, and start to slide the fingertips up, keeping the shoulder blades down and in. Do this really slow for about 10 reps. And then like always, Make sure after you're done you retest. Last but not least, retest. So if that shoulder was elevated before and it looked like this, then retest and then see if the bar is more flat now. Now, if it is more flat and both those shoulders are back into alignment, then we did an awesome, awesome thing. You literally reset years of damage to your muscular imbalances and got rid of an impingement in your shoulder that was causing it to be elevated. You're welcome. That's all. Thanks, guys.
