5 Best Shoulder Exercises for Strength and Stability

My shoulders are mobile, but in all the wrong ways. Hypermobile, actually, which inherently isn't a bad thing, but without the extra strength and stability to support this extra range of motion, it can lead to a lot of injuries. But hey, you might be saying, I'm on the other end of the spectrum, my shoulders are very stiff. And to you I say, that's also not great, because having a shoulder joint that's too stiff can also lead to injuries. You guys have heard me talk about the Knees Over Toes/ATG program on this channel for a while now, and it's obviously good for the knees, right? Like, I'm living proof of that. But I I haven't talked much about how this program has also helped my shoulders. As a volleyball player, I am constantly using my shoulders for hitting and blocking, digging, all sorts of motions. And obviously volleyball is not the only sport that uses the shoulders. There are many, many sports that require a lot of range of motion and strength in the shoulder. And just like the knees are very common injury, the shoulders are as well. So today in this video, I want to go over my top 5 favorite exercises from the Knees Over Toes program that has made the biggest impact on my shoulders and my ability to continue to perform my sport well and stay injury-free. But really quick, let's talk about the shoulder for a sec. Why is it so injury-prone? There's rotator cuff issues, frozen shoulder, torn labrum, shoulder impingement, tendonitis. Some of these things might ring a bell because either you've had them before or you've heard somebody complaining about them before. Well, the reason the shoulder is so susceptible to injuries is because of its unique anatomical structure and biomechanics. You see, the shoulder is a very cool ball-and-socket type joint, just like the hip is, but the shoulder has a very, very shallow socket, and this allows for a greater range of motion than any other joint in the body. And it also means that that ball-shaped head of the humerus has less bony reinforcement around it to secure it into place. Therefore, the shoulder heavily relies on the muscles, tendons, and ligaments surrounding it to really, really help stabilize that joint and protect it from injury. And of course, the instability gets compounded by the complexity of the joint itself and the muscles and tendons and ligaments that go into supporting that joint, because the shoulder is not just made up of one joint but actually a group of four, and any weakness or compromised movement in those interdependent parts can cause some issues. So all that said, you can recognize the huge importance of training the muscles, tendons, and ligaments around the shoulder to make sure that you are staying injury-free and performing at your best if you're an athlete. So let's talk about my 5 favorite exercises within the ATG program dynamics that have really, really helped me in my shoulder, especially since I've had a small labral tear in my shoulder and I have hypermobility issues to begin with. So these things have helped me a ton. The first one is one of the ATG external rotation exercises. This exercise requires you just kind of sitting on a bench, opening up the hip, one leg on top of the bench, and then you prop your front arm on top of the knee or just on the inside of the knee, making sure that it is anchored in place there, and you proceed to do some external rotation with a dumbbell. Now this exercise targets the external rotator cuff muscles, including the infraspinatus, the teres minor, and the posterior deltoid, which really act as dynamic stabilizers to the shoulder joint. Therefore, this exercise really, really helps with shoulder stability. And because of the way you are positioned with the dumbbell in this particular exercise, it also helps you get more mobility in that range of motion if you are struggling with being mobile through your shoulder joint, which a lot of people are that suffer from things like shoulder impingement, frozen shoulder, that sort of thing. A lot of muscles that this exercise targets help to strengthen the decelerators of the shoulder. So if you're somebody who's like a thrower or a hitter or something that requires a lot of forward acceleration motion, these kind of are the brakes to that acceleration. They help decelerate the shoulder joint. Infraspinatus in particular can act like a good decelerator and support deceleration to counter a lot of the acceleration movements that are required of athletes like throwing and hitting and things of that sort. Now the ATG standard for this exercise is 10% of your body weight for 12 reps, and if you haven't done anything like this before, it takes some time to get there. So be patient with yourself, take it easy. I have found this exercise to be incredibly helpful and has really just helped a lot with any kind of lingering shoulder pain I've had from volleyball. I feel like it's kind of like smoothed out the kinks and it's just really helped me keep it strong. I've noticed personally that my hitting has gotten stronger. I don't know if I can attribute it to just this exercise, probably a combination of the ones I'm going to talk about, but Nonetheless, I've really, really enjoyed doing this exercise. Secondly, I freaking love this exercise. It feels so good. It is the cross bench shoulder pullover. Now, if you are looking for a good lat stretch, this is it. With this exercise, you're going to keep your upper back on top of the bench. Your hips are going to dip below your shoulders, so you want to make sure that your shoulders are positioned above your hips. And you're going to take a dumbbell overhead and reach it far back, as far as your shoulders will allow you to go. In a pain-free range of motion, of course. And when you do this movement, you're going to feel an incredible stretch in your lats, in your shoulder joint itself. You're going to get a ton of really good thoracic back extension, which is excellent because a lot of the time we are kind of hunched over in this forward position with our shoulders kind of rounded forward. This just really helps us open up and increase some of the mobility in that extension as well. And the ATD standard for this exercise is 25% of your body weight for 12 reps. All right, moving on to my next favorite exercise, it's the trap 3 raise. Now this is called the trap 3 raise because it is targeting your trap 3, so your lower traps, because we have the top, middle, and lower traps. A lot of the times you'll see people with these overdeveloped upper traps, and that imbalance between the overdeveloped upper traps and the underdeveloped lower traps can lead to poor control of our shoulder blades. Which again can cause shoulder injuries in the long run. This one is awesome to do on a 45-degree back extension machine or something like the Nordic Hyper where you can easily modify the bench into 45 degrees. And the standard for this exercise is 10% of your body weight in each hand for 8 reps total. Again, start light. I know 10% of your body weight in each hand isn't going to seem like much, but by the time you get to like 5, 6 reps, you're gonna start really, really feeling it because it's a foreign muscle to work out unless you've really been honing in on your lower trap strength, which most of us have not been. So just take it easy and build your way up that to that standard, and your shoulders and back will thank you. All right, another exercise that is like small but mighty are the Powell Raises. Guys, I've never felt like such a wimp before in doing an exercise. I really had to start light on these, so don't feel bad. Like, I grabbed the tiniest pink dumbbells I could find that were maybe like 2 or 3 pounds to start with because this movement felt so foreign to me. Now, this exercise is so good for the scapular retractors, which again helps stabilize the scapula, AKA your shoulder blades. It's awesome for the rear deltoid, the supraspinatus, and the lateral deltoid as well. And it does even get into that upper trap a little bit too, not that we really need to work that, that much because again, a lot of us are overcompensating in the upper trap department. And the target for this exercise is 10% of your body weight for 10 reps. And last but not least, this isn't quite a strengthening exercise per se, is it more as just working a stretch and a mobility that it was included in the volleyball protocol for ATG. But I have found this to be so, so good. And also, man, I didn't realize this part of my shoulder was that tight, even for somebody that's hypermobile. And that is this lateral shoulder stretch against a wall. In this stretch, you are getting so much across the anterior delt and even the pecs a little bit too if you have a tight chest, which a lot of us tend to. Again, because of this kind of forward posture that we have throughout the day, those muscles tend to get shortened and not stretched enough. So this position really, really gets into that part of the shoulder and the pecs. This one I usually like to do 3 times, 30 seconds on each side. Towards the end of a workout or just anytime throughout the day too. It just feels really good. But guys, I know this was a shorter video. I wanted to keep it short and sweet for you guys and just kind of give you the down and dirty points of what really has helped make a significant impact on my shoulder health in the long run and helped me feel like a stronger athlete and worry much less about my shoulder health when I'm hitting a volleyball. So I'm really happy about it. I hope it helps you guys the same way. And I hope this kind of like also gives you a different viewpoint that the ATG program can be really great for other areas of the body too. A lot of people just think it's only knees and it's so much more than that. I mean, you're really getting a full body workout and I'll make sure to drop a link down below in the description if you wanted to learn more about it yourself. As always, guys, if you like this video, found it helpful, go ahead and give it a thumbs up. Subscribe to the channel. I greatly appreciate it every single time. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of you guys who have subscribed thus far. I appreciate all of you guys. And until then, I will see you guys next time. Bye!