 Do you suffer from scapular winging? Can't figure out how to fix it. Watch this Next caller is Nathan from Iowa. What's up, Nathan? How can we help you? Oh? Not too much. I just want to you know start by I appreciate being able to hear people talk about Fitness and is bullshit with each other. I don't get a chance to do that too often So it's nice to be able to hear that plus, you know a lot of the stuff you guys talk about has helped me kind of reframe how I approach programming because I work with a lot of people who have a whole bunch of issues so it helps having a different mindset than just Kind of what you learn in school and through the Certifications and stuff like that. So I really appreciate it and yeah, thank you also one day Adam I appreciated the story you were saying on the Christmas Eve a podcast when you're talking about how You can't ever find anything and you think your your wife moves it around and puts it in the crazy place because It happens to me all the time and I thought I was going crazy. So it's not a love You have only one we've all from hunters. That's that's that's my excuse. Sorry honey. I'm a hunter Is an explanation? Yeah, well, I'll give that a shot. We'll see if we'll see if That's just between us. Okay. Awesome. Let's hear it. What do you got going on? so Like I think the biggest issue I'm dealing with right now is I really want to get into Strength training because it's not something I've ever really focused on too much because I hurt myself a few years back And it's kind of bad and so it's always been kind of in the back of my mind So I've been keeping it light, but then I decided, you know, I got to get over that I got to start strength training, but I noticed that my serratus Interior like I can't get it to activate and it's causing like pretty bad scapular winging So I don't want to start strength training or anything like that. So I definitely get that that fixed and I don't know I've tried a whole bunch of stuff. I even went and got a certification and corrective exercise, but Still haven't been able to figure out what I'm doing wrong Do you is it both sides or is it just one side? No, it's both sides. Yeah. Okay. No, no previous injury. There's nothing like a like a nerve issue or anything like that, right? No, and then when do you get the winging? Is it when you do things like push-ups or presses? I noticed it mainly during presses because I didn't feel it before and I just happened I was doing some some cable presses and I glanced in the mirror and then I was like, holy shit Yeah, how far they were they were sticking out and yeah, so I've been trying to fix it since but yeah, this I'm gonna be honest with you Nathan. I I've had a few this I had a few Difficult one. This is one of the harder things to correct. It sounds silly But it's true and it's because getting the scapula to do what you want people are so It's like teaching a front lat spread, you know a bodybuilder post of someone who's never done it before It's a weird thing to do to get your to get your scapula to go from winging to To spreading out which is kind of what you wanted to do There's a couple exercises that I've seen that work pretty well for this There's a scapular push-up you could do and you might want to do this elevated or even on a wall where you you have your arms extended You allow your shoulder blades to come together And then your goal is to push your body away your arms are straight the whole time, right? Yeah, exactly without bending your elbow Yeah, so without bending your elbow and what you're doing is you're bringing the shoulders forward and bringing everything forward and letting Pinch back that might help you activate Then you can also try like dumbbell pullovers or straight arm pull downs now It's not directly working the serratus, but it will help stabilize So you could try that as well and those are the two movements that I've had the best success with I would I would prime that with handcuff with rotation first So I would do handcuff with rotation and then I would go into that into those movements I think would be an ideal way to get him into that one of the hardest things to teach the I don't even know what you call the the push-up where you what you're talking about the push-up plus Yeah, what's what Sal is talking about. I don't know what what is it? What do we? Yeah, and it's I think if someone hasn't got connected to be able to articulate that as a harder So I love handcuff with rotation first to get to get I was gonna say something similar And it was more around like scapular circles And you know doing like more of a kin stretch with that so trying to really intensify like isometric contraction While you know taking it through the full range of motion. So elevating it depressing it You know in protracting it retracting it and just doing those circles nice and slow and cadence and really squeezing You know intensively to be able to really try to get some near muscular connection So, you know the challenge so my the best success ever had was with Focusing on movement and not the muscle which is different than what I would do with other corrective issues So when you're doing the scapular push-up start with the wall, okay? Don't do it on the floor start with your hands on the wall and your your feet are out away from you So you're kind of leaning up against the wall a little bit with your arms straight And then with your arms totally straight see how far you could push your back Away from the wall your mid-back like you're rounding and pushing forward as far as you can And then bring your body close as you can to the wall with your arms totally straight that was the best success I had with getting people to Connect to the movement when I tried to get people to really focus on the shoulder blade and the surround was like did not work It just because it's such a weird Muscle we dip we definitely don't connect to it like we would with other muscles So that that was the best thing that I ever I've ever what's your prime pro. Yeah, he does he does you have Yeah, you said you had prime pro Nathan yeah, and The regular prime are you are have you done the handcuff with rotation? No, not yet. I've been doing like the the wall circles and like the chrome cobra I'm pulling the shoulder blade you got it. You got to do handcuff with rotation do that Do that in fact I would spend a lot of my time doing that even before after working out I'm talking about just you know watching TV hop down do that movement I think that's I think that personally that's one of the things that will benefit you the most And then I would go into what sows thing so I would start with handcuff with rotation And then I would go into the movement that sows talking about whether you do it off the wall or off the floor Nathan what's your what's your day look like like at work and stuff like that? What are you in a seated position all day long or what's what do you got going on there? It varies typically. I'm on my feet. Okay. Yeah, you know the challenge is that you can do a lot of movements Without protracting the scapula because you're not looking the issue isn't retracting the scapula The issue is protracting it and the issue is maybe even elevating it so we want to do movements that force you to do protracting and elevating and Handcuff for the rotations might do it But you might be able to go through and it wouldn't look good But you might be able to go through the motion with a wing scapula. You couldn't do it Here's another movement Nathan try this try holding in a barbell or dumbbells overhead So completely overhead arm straight and then shrug your shoulders and then shrug your shoulders And then let them come down and then shrug your shoulders and let them come down like you want to do movements that Forced that position or that movement and and stop focusing so much on connecting because the serratus is a it's one of those strange muscles That even if you connected to you wouldn't necessarily notice unless you had a really really good well-developed Serratus, but like I said with the with the wall pusher the wall scapula press You're literally just your extend your arm. You're just you're trying to get your upper mid-back away from the wall As far as you possibly can and then you're allowing and then you're trying to bring your chest to the wall as much as you can While maintaining straight arms. Does that make sense the way I'm explaining it? Yeah, yeah, I know it's sorry. Yeah, I can hit you to my mind Yeah, give that a shot in in you know, see how everything feels notice if to see if there's a difference between the shoulders Oh, yeah, definitely because like something I've tried before is Similar to what you're talking about but instead of like shrugging up I just like hold it and do like a isometric hold there trying to get it to activate and It's hit and miss sometimes. Yeah, forget trying to feel it and activate it Just focus on the the mode the movement that you're trying to get first then you'll start to connect to it afterwards And should I wait till it's like completely, you know, like I don't have scapula winging before Moving into like strength training or is there not necessarily just you would if you are gonna strength train You would you would really focus on what Sal said is the movement Don't get caught up in weight and reps and trying to really load Like you are trying to make the movement like you you mentioned seeing yourself the reflection of mirror and seeing you Winging so bad it whatever that weight was you were doing I would cut it in half at that moment and then Really try and get you to get into good posture while you know, I'm just remembering right now I literally had a client years ago. This was the most frustrating thing ever and I could not figure out how to get her to Protractor so you know what I finally did Nathan is I had her sit on a row machine So her chest was supported by the pad. She's holding the handles like she's gonna do a row We did a row so we were able to squeeze the shoulder blades black Then I let I told her I said let the handles pull you as far forward as you possibly can And so what happened is it pulled her forward? She rounded her back her shoulders came forward and then I said now hold that position I'm gonna take the handles from you I took the handles and then she was in that position and I said okay now What I want you to do and I had her put her palms out is that pushed on her hands and had a resist and hold that position I literally had to have weight force her in that position Before having her activate. Does that does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, okay. There you go. You another thing you can try So yeah, thanks for calling in. Thank you. No problem I'll tell you what dude when it comes to correctional exercise one of the hardest difficult This was nemesis. You don't you so you don't like handcuff with rotation in this situation You know why because I literally worked with the lady who she had nerve damage that she was repaired coming from Yeah, and I actually worked with a physical therapist and we did all kinds of shit And you would be surprised how much stuff you could do yeah with a winging scapula Oh, yeah, and finally compensate like crazy and finally literally what I said is what I did I had her hold on and it pulled her shoulders because I could not get her to protract Then I had the weight pull her forward Yeah, and I said all right let go of the weight and then she held that position Trotracting is the hardest that it's that it's like spreading the wings, right? I I love the seat and I didn't even know how we would explain that to him I you did the best I think we can because that is a movement I love to do with this person too is it get in the seated a row position and just practice that Almost like the lap pose like you're saying and you but that's a boy That's hard to tell someone to do it But if I was there with them strange like I'm just thinking of like a medicine ball or something like hugging it Squeezing it and really the idea is like obviously if you're if you're holding a weight That's pulling you forward or hugging something the resistance is is where you're trying to pull back Yeah, we need to give them resistance to pull forward, but sometimes they can't get in that position So it's like assisted yeah I even I even I even put my hands on this woman's shoulder blades and push them forward To get her to get in that position I just told her to hold it You know how hard it was just for her to hold it Yeah, it was like a six month process, but we finally got it to work So whenever I hear this I'm like I get chills This is my nemesis. 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