 Hello everybody Lance Coyke here. Today, we're going to work on the shoulder IT and Y This is an exercise variation just to be upfront that I don't really use anymore I did them pretty much every day for five years and saw no benefit at all and When I started to realize With the help of some of my old mentors what was going on I was just like this is just not worth my time anymore and I think I've let that bias Run into some of my coaching maybe it could be helpful for some other people. It might be a good Non-coached exercise for some people for some it's a slam dunk. It's everything that they need for me though I was really good at compensating around the purpose of the exercise. So let's let's talk about it So I did the the hand position. This is the eye. This is the T and this is the Y Sometimes you'll do this prone lying face down on a bench You can do it just bent over as well And you can even do it standing just to kind of feel what your shoulder blades are supposed to be doing So basically when I take when I make this action I'll turn to the side when I make this action. I'm pulling my Hands back, but I'm also pulling my shoulder blades back. It's kind of mimicking a row Right. It's just like I pull my elbow back and my shoulder comes with it When I'm doing that I'm trying to get to the activity of the upper back muscles I'm trying to get the the rhomboids and the trapezius specifically the lower and the middle fibers of the trapezius To turn on to activate so that I know what to do during my rowing movements right a lot of times when people have shoulder dysfunction they have subactive or hypoactive Lower trapezius muscles and and middle trapezius and even rhomboids. I would venture to say The problem is when I'm doing this exercise I need to make sure that my spine my midsection is secured So if I do this I and I bring my shoulder blades back But I lean myself back to do it. I'm gonna feel a good pinch I'm gonna feel a good squeeze kind of in Somewhere in that area. Maybe my middle back. Maybe in my it feels like my upper back But the problem is I'm getting that from my spinal extensor muscles. I'm getting excessive spinal extension period Rather than exclusively getting it from my upper back muscles those trapezius and rhomboids that we were talking about so What you have to look out for again is this leaning back while you do it The secret here is you got to find some way to turn your abs on and keep them kind of secured Gently secured while you do the the retraction of the shoulder blades while you bring those hands back the The problem is here If I say abs what you're gonna do is you're gonna want to try to crunch down a little bit And then you're gonna do this little thing and that's not quite given me what I'm looking for what I need is Just a a not too straight not too extended low back I need to find my lower abdominals to secure my pelvic position While I move my upper body from that Sometimes you even need to Avoid the thoracic extension more than you would think so so I use that term because it's frequently thrown around on the internet as the You know the be all end all of shoulder dysfunction And I would agree that People have limited mobility in their shoulder areas and in their thoracic spine That however is by design because there are more joints there the rib cage comes there and it restricts that movement You're not supposed to have quite as much movement there So some of it is normal What I did was I I said, okay If some is good more is better and I just kept driving that motion and that caused more dysfunction for me It destabilized my left shoulder now. It's just kind of hanging out there. It doesn't really know what to do Okay, so keep an eye out for that the just now just the hand positions of this movement the eye is down here It's it's good for just getting a general retraction. It's probably all you really need to do The T is kind of like a reverse fly and it loads your middle back muscles a little bit more as long as you can get the The position and then the Y helps me load my lower trapezius muscles Basically the way that you're going to compensate on this is either that leaning back that we talked about or a shoulder shrug especially during the Overhead the Y variations It's really easy to kick on your upper trap and neglect that lower trap that you're really trying to load so Be cognizant of your position, right? Get a little bit of that hip tuck get some abdominal lower outer abdominal Activity to secure you as you bring your hands back for the eye the T and the Y