in this video you're gonna learn five unique serratus anterior exercises that
will be beneficial whether you're looking to improve shoulder stability
for sports performance or your performance in the gym
you've got scapular winging that you're trying to fix or just want to improve
shoulder function for long-term health
yo what's up it's Coach E here from Precision Movement and today I've got
five serratus anterior exercises for you that will help you get that muscle
working properly integrate it into patterns that you'll use in everyday
life Sport and the gym and to prevent problems like scapular winging if you
have that and if it's hurting you so the serratus anterior that's something that
you may or may not have heard of before and it's a muscle that attaches it
originates and starts on the medial aspect of the scapula but you can't
touch it because it lies deep to the scapula is on the anterior aspect which
is the front facing aspect of the scapula or the shoulder blade wraps
forward around your ribcage and inserts in a serrated fashion that's where the
name comes from into the ribcage here you might have heard of it referred to
before as the boxers muscle because it adds reach to a punch so if your arm is
just stuck out without really extending it here like this and then you reach it
like that the serratus anterior contributes a lot to that movement
protraction of the scapula which is the scapula wrapping around the rib cage so
that's why they called the boss response because you can get an extra couple
inches of reach and if I were to measure right here the difference between full
serratus anterior activation which is protraction the scapula and then
retraction you can get about six inches so it could be significant if you're not
using it properly or if it's dysfunctional because of different
things there's a few different things common things that result in its
dysfunction one is carrying heavy backpacks
that's for long periods of time so if you're a student you've got a book full
of bags and you're lugging them all around campus that could cause damage to
the long thoracic nerve which innervates and fires up the serratus anterior if that
nerve gets damaged it will no longer fire that muscle and the muscle will
weaken and atrophy that's one common scenario another common scenario is
musculature in the front so internal rotators of the shoulder like the pec
major or the subscapularis as well as the pec minor if those muscles are
hypertonic and they are contracted they can cause inhibition of the serratus
anterior so it doesn't do its job properly so in this video I'm gonna show
you a technique to dis inhibit those muscles shut them off decrease their
tone to allow the serratus to fire up better finally here's one that I hear or
I come across quite often is that common cue that a lot of trainers or you might
hear in videos or articles of keeping the shoulder blades down and back and
when that cue is overused and applied to techniques where that shouldn't happen
that will shut off the serratus interior so the serratus anterior is responsible
for protraction of the scapula protraction of the scapula should occur
whenever your arms are in front of you so at the top of a push-up or whenever
your arms are up above the serratus should be protracting and elevating
that's called upper rotation that facilitates that movement of the arm the
shoulder flexion if you're always keeping your shoulder blades pinched
down and back that's going to recruit the rhomboids middle and lower trapezius
and it's not gonna allow the serratus to do its job which is to move the scapula
and maintain that dynamic stability of the scapula during shoulder movements if
you don't use it you're gonna lose it okay so if you're always told to keep
your shoulders down and back whether it's pressing overhead doing bench press
that's a common one you want to do that during the bench press if your shoulders
safe especially if you're lifting heavy chin-ups is another
keep any shoulder blades down and back even though you're hanging and your arms
are your shoulders are in full flexion that cue is not going to serve you and
your shoulder health for the long term so allowing proper scapula humeral
rhythm which is movement of the scapula in conjunction with the arm they should
move together in a coordinated rhythm allowing that to happen is going to help
you to keep your shoulders balanced and healthy so in this video let's go
through the five exercises now that are going to help to get the shoulder girdle
working properly and to get the serratus anterior firing and to get it stronger
the first technique active self myofascial release four just call it the
anterior shoulder we're gonna hit deltoids pec minor
impact major here all you want to do is start with your arm across grab on to
your opposite shoulder so it kind of relaxes those muscles and then dig your
fingers into this area of the shoulder from there there's various moves you can
do but basically you're just opening up reaching back as you're sliding the
fingers down this way this will dis inhibit these muscles decrease the tone
so that other muscles like the serratus that are opposed to the movements and
the functions of these muscles can fire better so key is grab a cross shoulder
find an area dig in pull and then open up and you can with this arm you can do
different motions like more of an external rotation motion or just a pure
horizontal extension motion and go from the clavicle the collarbone here under
there right down down into the belly of the pec major okay so that's active self
myofascial release do it for about a minute or two on each side and that's
the first technique to decrease the tone of these muscles so that the serratus
can fire better next up first technique the shoulder rotation robot now I've
shown this before and it's one that I really like because it trains reciprocal
movement of the shoulders which is as one arm moves the other moves in the
opposite direction and then they alternate between
those two okay you tell why it's robot all right
so that's a natural pattern what it's like walking one arm goes forward the
other goes back it's reciprocal movement this is creating dynamic stability of
the scapula and it trains the serratus when the arm is down especially okay so
here you do want to keep the shoulder blades down and back go up against a
wall heels about six inches from the wall or so and just abduct the shoulders
a little bit like so keep a fist keep the wrists in neutral and one arms up
one arms down so you maintain shoulder blade position scapular position and
then at the end range here I'm still trying to push my fist down here closer
to the wall and I'm driving this fist into the wall hold for five seconds and
then you switch so it go as far as you can here I could push the fist in the
wall here I can't touch the wall but I'm still trying to reach it still
activating as much as I can make sure you're breathing while you're doing that
hold and activation and then you alternate so the whole time the scapula
don't move you stay in basically a neutral position when you go into
internal rotation the scapula wants to lift off so when the scapula so this is
my right scapula as my right scapula here when the scapula does that that's
known as anterior tilt anterior scapular tilt just like the pelvis can tilt the
scapular can do the same the serratus is responsible for posterior tilt of the
scapula so when we're fighting this anterior tilt of the scapula because we
go into internal rotation that's just an Associated pattern the serratus fires up
to maintain that so it's saying hey I don't want that scapula to move I'm
gonna fire it up and hold it there that's where your training dynamic
Stability of the scapula very important function okay and that is one of the
probably the most important function of the serratus is not the protraction
movement because we rarely use that it's just a
natural movement but we rarely require it for activities of daily living
support it's not something that is really targeted however dynamic
stability is required with all shoulder movements and the serratus is critical
to providing that function next technique one that you've probably seen
before scapular push up some kind of variation I'm just going to show you
some quick variations from easier to more difficult so first could be just a
four-point position go from protraction
control the retraction so it's like an eccentric movement of the serratus
eccentric contraction the serratus anterior and then protraction
okay so this is really easy four-point position and go to push-up position then
again same thing protraction controlled retraction so you get that eccentric
contraction working okay a little bit more load now one key when you're doing
any kind of scapular push up is push through the palm of the heel down here
that's going to help to activate the scapular stabilizers in general and the
serratus a little bit better okay so you're not pushing through the fingers
you're pushing through the palm of the heel one that I like now you can go to
one arm as well show you that real quick obviously more load
don't jump to the more advanced versions and skip them because if you think
they're better what's the best technique is the one that you can do that's a
little bit challenging okay the hardest one if you can't do properly
you're gonna compensate with other muscles and you're gonna further that
dysfunction and one that I really like kind of the the last in the variations
most challenging from a strength and a complexity standpoint is the scapular
step-up so you can use a step traditional stepper or I've got some
yoga blocks here spread the feet a bit wider and the reason why I like this
just it involves a little bit more movement
so you're developing greater control make sure you're aligned in the spine
okay started off in protraction of the scapula lift one off controlled
retraction and then switch switch your weight that's this hand and then go back
change sides I can't roll down switch your weight and rinse and repeat here
hits key continue to push through the palm of your heel and make sure your
elbows stay locked out you're not getting tricep we're not trying to work
the triceps we're trying to keep the arms straight to isolate the movement at
the scapula yeah so those are some scapular push-up variations ending off
with the scap step up which is one that I really like okay so that is how many
techniques active self myofascial release robot push-ups now we've got
overhead roll out so overhead rolled out another one of my favorite techniques
this is gonna train that dynamic stability of the serratus and integrate
it with shoulder flexion so go into the overhead position as well as neutral
spine core stability what you want to do just find the wall hands on the wall
and if you have an ab wheel this is great but if not you just put your hands
on the wall as long as you can slide a bit now maintain neutral of the core and
then slide up and as you go up you're leaning towards the wall and allowing
the scapula to upwardly rotate it's elevate and protract at the top hold
briefly a couple seconds make sure you're breathing and then back down okay
again maintain stability well now the scapula to go through their
full range training good scapula humoralism hold breathe briefly up here
let's get some mobility and back down okay so there you have well five
techniques kind of like four techniques if you count all the scap push up and
then the scap step up as one grouping but five serratus anterior exercises to hit
the different types of functions different functions of the serratus
anterior so that's dynamic Stability of the scapula that is protraction
controlling protraction retraction and that is dynamic stability dynamic
control in the overhead movement the shoulder flexion movement okay so that
there you have some great techniques to use many you've probably never seen
before and all that will help not only your serratus anterior function properly
but your whole shoulder girdle work better to give you more stability better
control greater mobility as well and just shoulders that are healthier and
move the way that they're supposed to okay so if you like this video you might
want to check out and if you have scapular issues or shoulder issues I
highly suggest you check out my shoulder control course I'll throw the link on at
the end of this video otherwise do these exercises benefit from them and maybe
give me a thumbs up and subscribe whatever do what you want alright see
you next time peace