Bicep Training with Shoulder Dysfunction (What to Do)

In this video, I'm going to show you how we work with our clients who have shoulder dysfunction. Hi, my name is Mark Ottobre, and I've worked with world champions, Commonwealth Games gold medalists, and helped create thousands of head-turning results. This clip was taken from my Elite Results Bootcamp, which had trainers from all over Australia learning our techniques and methods of how we produce head-turning results. In this video, I take James through a mechanical drop set addressing his shoulder issues as well as the bicep tendon issue. I hope you enjoy. The bicep tendon runs to the shoulder. Yeah, that can be an issue for people with shoulder health. And yesterday when he was doing deadlift, he kept bending his arms, which indicates to me that he's not strong in the end range position. So when I'm coaching someone for the first time like James, and I don't know how they move, I get again a control of how they actually move before I make any changes. So right now, is he doing what I want him to do? No. If he's a beginner client then I'll show them. But because I know James has prior training knowledge, I get them to do what they're doing and then I correct them because I just want to see how they move. And again, I'm not going to force him into any range of motions because I don't know what his range of motion is like. But at the end of this range of motion— so all the way down. So come all the way down with the dumbbell. Yeah, I want you to flex your tricep at the end. Flex your tricep. How's that? Pain on the right side. All right, bring it, bring it back up. Let's go even lighter. This is kind of what I was thinking would be the issue with him. So I want you to flex the tricep on the bottom. He hasn't been exposed to this range of motion, which— this might be too light to begin, but I'd rather be on the safe side. So up, flex that tricep at the bottom, and back up. So I'm taking this for a much full range of the biceps to really stretch that bicep tendon out, as well as addressing— and you'll see how we address the bicep as well. Stretch. And if you can, James, Instead of him being here, like, try and really like get into this position where that, that bicep is fully stretched. See, right now his body really doesn't want to go there. He lacks strength through this range of motion. Now the other thing I want you to do is pull the wrist back there. I want you to stay like that now. So really hitting— so how's this feeling? You're getting a bit of a pump by doing this? Yeah, some more up here. Okay, squeeze all the way. Let's do 5 more. I want you to flex the bicep. Flex the bicep. Good. 1. Back down. Flex the tricep. Flex the tricep. Flex the tricep. Flex the tricep. Open up that chest. Good. Flex, flex, flex, flex, flex, flex. All right, we'll leave it there. We're going to come back to another set. How did that feel? That's right. We're going to put those, put those away. Let's grab the 5s, we'll go a little bit, a little bit heavier. So in the presentation on hypertrophy today, we're going to talk about the 5 major levers of— when I say levers, vectors. Think of them as vectors of hypertrophy. The overall one is proximity to failure. Now it's going to be very hard to get proximity to failure in this position because one, he's not— he's got a real strength in this position. So to take this position to proximal failure is dangerous because this is where he could injure himself. We've got to limit load because there's an injury consideration. We can do high volume. Load is obviously going to be low. The range of motion and tension is going to be very, very high here. So I'm not going to do this in isolation. What we're going to do, I'm going to show you, is we're going to do a mechanical drop set here, which is one of the techniques we use. And again, because this is where I want him from, I suppose, a mobility point of view, I want him to start developing strength here. This is going to be the A1. A2, I'm going to grab him a heavier set of dumbbells. He's going to move into Zottmanns. And then A3, he's going to stand up and take the same pair of dumbbells. Let's start here. And James, I'll just give you a reference. This is where I want you. Give me this. So we're actually being very, very nice to him, by the way, with the angle. And I'm doing it on purpose because I'd much rather him here and him really getting to the stretch position. That's where, that's where I actually want him, right? You can see the severity of that bicep tendon and bicep stretch. I'm starting him here on purpose because I know full well I'm just not going to achieve that today. But you can see where I want you, James. Every rep, I want you to flex the, flex the tricep. We're going to do 10 of these. So at the bottom, I want you to rest for 2— I want you to pause for 2 seconds on every rep. Do you see it? Do you understand what we're doing here? I want exposing the end range. Good, good. One, flex that tricep, let it hang. Good. You can really see he doesn't want want to go there, right? Because there's no strength there. Flex the tricep, flex the tricep, let it hang. Good. This is 10. All the way down and pause it at the bottom. Just let it hold for 5 seconds. Let it hang. 5, 5, 4, 3, let it hang, let it hang. 4, 3, 2, 1. Okay, sit up, drop them. Push the 10s sitting up. Right, Zottman curls. So up strong. And turn them. Good control. And keep those elbows forward. One. See how when— turn them, turn them, turn them, turn them. Keep your elbows forward, keep your elbows forward, keep your elbows forward. Now when you curl, keep the elbows forward. Good. Turn them. You're gonna do 2 more, 2 more, 2 more, then 10 seconds rest. Slow, slow, slow. Elbows forward, elbows forward. Flex, drop them for a sec. 10 seconds. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. All right, um, grab them both, stand up. And curling both at the same time. Yeah, protract. That's it. It's a nice position. The reason why I want to protract is, uh, the lever point. The strength arm is further away from his body, creates more tension. We've got 12 to 15 here. 6. Elbows forward, elbows forward. 7. Lean forward, lean forward. Keep the elbows forward. 7. 8. 10. Come on, come on. Just keep the technique. I don't want you to change what you're doing. Don't change what you're doing. Shoulders forward, shoulders forward. Go. Protracted. Now kill. Now kill. If you fail, you fail. It's fine. No, no, that wasn't a good rep. Here, here. Stay forward. Stay forward. Now kill. I want you to fail. Elbows forward. No, you bring the elbows back. Keep the tension. Elbows forward, elbows forward. Come on. That's 11. Elbows forward, elbows forward. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. Good. Now keep them in that position. Keep them in that position. Now lower, lower, lower, lower, lower. Lock the triceps. There. Now curl. Now curl. Feel the difference? Good. And again, 2 more exactly like that. Don't move your body. You're just biceps. You're just biceps now. Lock triceps, triceps, triceps. Lock them, lock them. Curl. Good, good, good, good, good. I want you to lock at the bottom. Go, go, go. Lock, lock, lock, lock, lock. Block. Last one, last one. Cool. Good. There we go. Slow. 4, 3, 2, 1. Block. Good. Done. Let's give him a round of applause. How do you feel, James? I've got a wicked headache for some reason. Pushing. It's a good example for multiple reasons. One, we're addressing a dysfunction, but we're also training hypertrophy. Right, so you can see how when we incorporate training and the exercise selection, I'm addressing an issue for James which is through his shoulder and his inability to really straighten that arm, which is going to cause problems and issues for his deadlift. I said to him yesterday I don't want him to do a mixed grip because he was bending his arm when he was on the mixed grip, which if you're doing that, that's a ripped, a torn bicep waiting to happen, because when you shift, all the load goes to the bicep and Yeah, it will go straight away. Leave your questions in the comments below and remember to subscribe to my channel for more great fitness, business, and content.