hey guys Daniel Vardhan all here for fitness fa Q's I use someone that struggles with overhead
mobility tight lats and a tight back this is the video for you I'm going to show you three
really effective ways to permanently increase the overhead range of motion and get rid of
that tightness in your back and your lats now before any stretching intervention or method that
you're going to try out it's important to see how effective it is to start with test your current
range of motion stand up tall nice tight body no arching through the back keep your elbows straight
and go through pure shoulder flexion keeping your shoulders relatively close towards the ears this
way after you've done the intervention or the series of stretches and strengthening you can see
how effective it was now in this video I'm going to explain three methods when used together a more
effective than simply doing one on their own these three include self myofascial release stretching
including PNF stretching as well as strengthening a ten range of motion three important areas when
combined will give you really effective results to start off with the protocol let's have a chat
about self myofascial release we're trying to work through our lats so I want you guys to use a foam
roller and then work up and down the length of the lap when you do this take your time be
patient most people just rush up and down up and down really quick and you're essentially passing
over those areas of tightness and those areas of restriction I tend to like to go to quite slow
on the way up and the way down really catching those areas when you're doing this you can work
up and down the muscle so going from the pelvis all the way to the rotator cuff interval where
it ties in the top of the lats and just working up and down for a couple of minutes another strategy
that you can use is holding an area that you find the most tight and then moving your arm
through range so we need to think what the lats actually do so it's extension adduction and into
rotation of the shoulder when you line your side you find that area of tightness on your lat I
want you to work through external rotation of the shoulder so thumb up towards the ceiling you're
going to be a B ducting your arm away from your body and you're also flexing it so these three
movements combined are going to fully lengthen the lap as you bring your arm overhead whilst
you're working through that area of tightness now in terms of self myofascial release we're not
breaking up adhesions we're not you know mashing the the tissue so it actually gets longer or more
extensibility through the tissue essentially what happens when you've got tightness when you go to
massage an area neurological tightness your body has a comfortable range of motion based on what
you do the style of training the lifestyle you live so by working through the area with some self
myofascial release you're essentially calming down your nervous system and preparing it to
go into a deeper range of motion you're teaching your body that it's okay it can relax and it can
settle down self myofascial release is great when it's combined with something else so if you just
did this sure you're going to get some acute or temporary range of motion improvements but it's
it's transient it's only going to last for a short period of time if you don't use it you
lose it that's why foam rolling needs to be used in conjunction with other modalities stretching
and strengthening which we're going to talk about now now that we've done our foam rolling and our
body's primed to stretch the nervous system is calm and it's receptive for stretching the areas
of restriction let's actually go on and stretch the area that we want this stretch I'm showing you
guys here isn't awesome stretch for the lats and that whole lateral line through your thoracolumbar
fascia where it connects in you get some add a glute as you're stretching it's fantastic it
ticks a lot of boxes at once with a really simple stretch to set up for this one I want you guys to
have your thumb facing up towards the ceiling sky wherever you are and then from here keeping the
elbow straight you're going to take a staggered stance so if you're stretching your left side
your right foot is in front and vice-versa for the other side then what you're going to do is
lean back whilst keeping that elbow straight and you're going to feel a really nice stretch three
lap to intensify the stretch I want you guys to rotate your body when you do this keep your
lower back locked in and I want you to think of extending really tall through your entire
back during this position you can also add in some pmf proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation also
known as contract relax this is another trick that you can use to essentially fatigue your
nervous system so it doesn't hold on to all that tension and allows your body to get into a deeper
range of motion to do that with this particular stretch we need to a contraction so when you're
in that position I want you to think of pulling your hand down towards the ground as well as in
this is going to contract and fatigue the lat do this for about 10 seconds once you've done that
relax going to a deeper range of motion trying to extend more try and get your chest closed towards
the ground and try and Bend laterally in this position I'd spend a couple of minutes going
through a few sequences of that pmf that contract relax just to make sure you've gotten as deep and
as full of a stretch that you can now lastly it's the most important and the most neglected part of
mobility or increasing range of motion and that's strength strength and stability if you don't work
on this how do you expect your body to permanently be able to gain to the position you've opened it
up and how it's important to teach your body and show your nervous system how to recruit
the right muscles to keep your arms overhead this drill here is brutal it's no compensation at all
so you need something like a block or a foam roller works quite well I want you to kneel on
the ground and position yourself straight forward into flexion and keeping that elbow straight it's
a really really small movement you're going to just simply flex your shoulder what you're going
to feel here is the muscles on the back of your shoulder your posterior rotator cuff all those
scapula stabilizer muscles trying to lift your arm up that's where traditional flexibility
goes wrong we just passively stretch hang out there the boy doesn't know what to do with it
what we've done here is we're strengthening the muscles responsible for overhead range of motion
this is super important now in terms of this movement the most common compensations your
body's going to make bent elbow you're going to shorten the leave arm making the exercise easier
don't bend the elbow what your body will also do is bend sideways or rotate sideways to make
up for a lack of shoulder flexion when you set up for this exercise make sure that your lower
backs taken out of the movement and you're simply moving in this straight up and down position don't
expect huge range of motion check me out hyung humbly doing this exercise as well I'm shaking
it's hard but I'm forcing myself not to compensate and as a result I'll get more available range of
motion more strength overhead and what do you know the results will be permanent I want you guys to
retest the overhead range of motion and I want you to client below did you improve did you get a side
to side difference how drastic was it comment below and as you can see guys these methods and
putting some thought into your training is really important it's not just about blindly training
harder and longer it's about using the right methods at the right time for the right dosages
if you want to find out how to do so when it comes to body weight training calisthenics go to fitness
FAQ TV our training course are filled with all this useful information when it comes to mastering
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week Friday on Fitness FAQ YouTube for another video awesome train hard and I'll see you soon