- So you wanna learn how to fix scapular winging?
Well, in this video, I'm gonna teach you
a step by step strategy to fix this problem permanently.
Now make sure you stick around to the end
because I'm also gonna teach you the one big thing
that everybody is stuffing up
that prevents this from being fixed permanently.
All that and more coming up.
We are the gym that teaches people
how to move instead of just exercise
because we believe that health is
about performance not just body image.
Hi, in case we haven't met my name's Rad Burmeister,
co-founder of the Foundation Movement System and Unity Gym
where you're taught to nourish and move
instead of just diet and exercise
and where health is measured by your performance
and the way you feel, not just by the way you look.
So with scapular winging, what you wanna be focusing on
is how to obviously strengthen the muscles
that pull the scapula down onto your back
and the number one muscle that we wanna
be focusing on for that is called the serratus anterior.
But you do need to understand that it's not just
about strengthening the serratus.
Strengthening the muscles that pulls the scapula
down onto your back,
it's about teaching the central nervous system
how to coordinate all of the muscles
that are involved in scapular control
that create good, scapular movement.
So what we're going to do in this video,
we're gonna go through a really cool strategy
or step by step process, I should say
to get you to strengthen those muscles
and to strengthen that neurological connection.
So the first two exercises that we're gonna do
are for strengthening the serratus,
so the first exercise we're gonna do
is called a scapular push up.
So what you're gonna do from here
is to have your index fingers facing forward,
that's really important with your fingers splayed
and your index finger about shoulder width apart.
Then from here, we're going to do,
to press the scapula, so that means
we're gonna push the shoulders down
towards the feet, we're gonna come up
into a push up position and from here
we're going to retract the scapula and then protract.
So that means that my scapula pulls back together,
to touch, and then pushes apart like that.
Retract, protract, now there's few
really key things to think about here
that most people mess up.
The first is that the elbows must stay completely straight.
So if when I do these reps,
if my arms are going like that as I come down,
that's completely incorrect and you need to regress it.
The way you regress it is just to go on your knees.
The second really big mistake that people make
is they round their back and they arch their back,
so when they go into retract, when they go down,
their back arches like this and then when they come up,
they round their back out like that.
And that is a really poor understanding
of the way that the scapula works
and a poor understanding of what you're trying
to achieve in this exercise.
If I sit up straight like this
and put my hands out, in essence what I'm trying to do
is retract the shoulders and protract them.
So if you look from behind,
I'm gonna retract and protract.
There's nothing to do with any arching
in my spine when I do that.
So when you do the exercise,
you've gotta work very, very hard
to maintain that proper position.
And we do that by clicking into a posterior pelvic tilt,
so that means I'm gonna tense my butt and tense my abs.
So that my bum and hips go like this, okay.
Once I've got that posterior pelvic tilt,
we're gonna depress the scapula
and then we're gonna go through the movement.
On each rep, when you go down,
you just touch the scapula together,
but then when you come back up,
hold it for three seconds, okay.
Aim for three sets of 10 reps,
but only what you can do with really good technique,
for a lot of you guys, you're only gonna
be able to do maybe two or three reps.
And if you can't do it at all,
just go to the knees, from here and work it like that, okay.
So the next exercise is called the whippet
and we're gonna be using one of these gymnastics bands here.
And we've got a link in the description
so you can get yours on Amazon.
And what you're gonna do is hold the band
in your hands like this
and we're gonna just grip it with the thumb,
turn the hands over, grab the band,
bring it through like that.
A lot of people struggle with that move,
so if you can't get that right,
just wrap the band around your hands.
Turn it inside out, so from here
you just bring your hands towards your body,
so it goes through like that
and now your hands are in this position.
Now we're gonna bring the hands up behind,
and from here what I'm gonna do
is pull forward into protraction
as hard as I can and then pull back into retraction.
Pull forward in protraction, and back into retraction.
So what you can do is if you just understand
the idea that the shoulders are,
the scapula is pulling apart, that's protraction.
And then the scapula is pulling together, that's retraction.
And whilst you do this, you wanna try
and get the protraction and retraction
to happen as the whole arm is moving.
So it shouldn't be that the arm moves all the way
and then you protract
and then the arm moves all the way
and then you retract, it should happen together.
The next one we're gonna do is called the band pull apart.
And for this one I use a little bit of a thinner band
and what you're gonna do is grab onto the band like this
and you can grab it both ways.
You can grab it like this way or this way.
I like to grab it in a supinated grip
'cause then it externally rotates the shoulders
and I like to train with my shoulders in external rotation
as much as possible because we all spend
so much time sitting at the desk
in an internally rotated position.
And then from here, all I'm gonna do
is pull that band apart as hard and far as I can get it.
So you can see when I do it,
my scapula is retracting as I do this.
Pretty simple that one,
there's not a lot to explain about it
except just keep the scapula depressed whilst you do it.
And make sure that you're focusing
on pulling those shoulder blades back together.
So this exercise, this is enough for the serratus now,
now we're working on the rhomboids and the trapezius.
So the muscles that are involved in retracting
the scapula, just to create this beautiful movement
and this, what we talked about,
this central nervous system's ability to activate
the right muscles to hold the scapula in place.
So the next one we're gonna do
is overhead band pull aparts,
so from here we wanna go back
to this same position here with the band,
where we turn it inside out,
and then from here we're gonna
start with the band up above the head,
actually, for me I do a couple of twists here
with this band, I don't find that I get enough
resistance otherwise, I twist it two times one of my hand.
Itchy nose. And now from here,
you're gonna start with the thumbs facing forward
and then we're gonna pull the scapula down
and bring the band down behind the back
so the thumbs are facing up.
Back to the start, that's still too easy for me,
so I'm gonna give it another twist, whoops. Like that.
So from here, that's a bit better.
So you can see my thumbs are facing forward at the top.
Pulling down and if have a look
at what's going on in the shoulder blade.
So this is training internal and external rotation
of the shoulder blade, which again,
it's just all about strengthening
the central nervous system's ability
to activate the muscles that control
the scapula and hold it into its correct position.
The last one we're gonna do is called the wall slide.
So from here, what I'm doing is
I'm actually sucking my stomach in
to push my lower back against the wall.
The closer my feet are to the wall,
the harder it is and I'm gonna put my head against the wall,
so basically my whole spine's on the wall.
From here, I'm gonna press my wrists against the wall
and press my forearms against the wall
and then I'm gonna come up as high as I can go
whilst keeping my lower back on the wall,
it gets quite hard up here.
Most of you won't be able to go to where I'm going there.
And then I'm gonna come all the way back down,
keeping my lower back on the wall,
keeping my wrists on the wall,
so I could go lower than that.
But my wrists come off the wall,
so that's not what I'm looking for.
My lower back comes off the wall.
So we're gonna come back up,
as high as you can go.
And then come back down, all the way
as far as your can go, keeping the wrists on the wall.
Keeping the forearms on the wall,
when you get to that point where you can't go lower
unless everything comes off the wall,
that's where you stop.
Now a lot of you guys are not going
to be able to do this, you going to,
you won't even be able to get your hands
on the wall at all at the start.
Now that's okay, we're going to,
just put the thumbs on the wall like this,
turn your hands that way and now you're gonna
do exactly the same movement,
except the only focus is to keep the thumbs on the wall
whilst you're doing, sorry,
you're still focused on the lower back
being pushed against the wall
and your head against the wall,
but as far as the arms go,
you're only focusing on the thumbs being on the wall.
Now if that's you, if you can't get there,
we're about to make a video for overhead mobility,
for the ability to be able to get your arms overhead
and I highly recommend that you watch that
because you really need that.
And if you wanna go even a step further,
download our Flexibility Blueprint
because if you can't get your arms
on the wall like I am here then you've got
some major, major mobility and flexibility issues
and The Flexibility Blueprint
is gonna give you all the answers that you need for that.
And there's a program as well
that you can get if you're interested in it
which is highly effective in increasing shoulder mobility.
So the reason why scapular winging happens
is it's called, it's actually called paralysis
to the serratus anterior and it's caused
by a disfunction of the long thoracic nerve.
So there's many reasons why this can happen.
For a lot of people it can be trauma,
you might have been in an accident that caused trauma
that is preventing this nerve
from getting the feedback that it needs
or getting the stimulus that it needs from the brain
to be able to control the serratus properly.
And keep the scapula in place.
But what's more common is it's just an under-use thing.
There is no information being communicated
properly from the brain
and the serratus anterior ends up just becoming paralyzed
and it just can't do its job.
So if you're in the first category,
if you've had trauma, you may need to go and see a doctor
or surgeon and figure out what your options are there.
But if you're in the second category
which is the great many of you
that are gonna be watching this video,
then the work that's we've just shown you
is absolutely going to get you started on your journey.
And what do I mean by get you started?
It's really about retraining that nerve
to be able to control the serratus properly
to do its job and you need to understand
that when you do these exercises,
these are not strength training exercises,
like you could do these everyday,
this is not the kind of a workout
where your muscles would be fatigued from this.
The nervous system'll get fatigued,
but that's okay, it'll recover within a day
because it's a very low load on the nervous system.
And what you're really trying to do,
you're looking for absolute, perfect quality reps.
So you're got to, if you can't do the quality reps
on the progression that I showed you
you need to regress it, or with the bands
it's simple as just getting a smaller, thinner band.
And once you get strong enough,
once you develop that initial level of awareness,
where you can control these movements really well
and it's looking really good,
the next thing that you need to do is to progress
to the big bang for your buck strength training movements.
The time is gonna come when you need
to start doing bench press,
bent over row, deadlifts, snatch grip deadlifts,
pull ups, chest to bar pulls ups,
even at a higher level, work on gymnastics rings,
planches, planche push ups, things like that.
But the bigger bang for your buck
strength movements are where this is all
going to come together.
So if we bring this whole thing in for a landing,
the reason why we showed you these multiple
different exercises, only the whippet
and the scapula push ups, the first two exercises
here that we've shown you,
they're the only ones that directly
train the serratus anterior.
But all the other exercises are there
to create synergy and just to create your body's,
strengthen the central nervous system's ability
to control all of the muscles
that connect to the scapula,
or at least the majority of them,
the major ones that we're looking for here.
And by doing that, you will start
to reduce that winging, so you'll start
to be able to control your body better,
or it'll just happen on its own.
And then you're gonna come to the point
where you need to move on from this
and progress to the big bang for your buck
strength training exercises.
And if you need any help with that,
we have a ton of videos,
we're gonna link a bunch of them here for you
where you can learn how to do
these big strength training movements.
Hey, before we go, I just wanna give
a bit shout out to Ahmed Mansoor
for requesting this video, thanks a lot bro,
it's a pleasure to make these videos for you
and if anyone else out there who's watched this
and enjoyed it has your own questions,
if you want anything for us to make videos on,
just leave a comment and we will definitely get around
to it and make those videos for you
so that we can teach you guys how to fix
these problems in your body.
Now if you haven't done so already,
make sure you download our Flexibility Blueprint.
I guarantee you that it is going to be a massive
part of your development getting more flexible,
and that's why we've created this free blueprint
so that you can learn from us
and from all of the decades of experience
that we've had in getting flexible.
Now, if you haven't already done so,
subscribe to our channel,
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we do them weekly and until next time, see ya later.
(upbeat music)
So the next one we're gonna do is called
a band pull a, pull apart, band pull a...
You can get a...(groans). All right.
The nerve is..., what's the nerve called?
- [Man] Long thoracic...