shoulder movement on dips, etc.

[rubthebuddha]

on exercises like dips or pullups, etc., do you lock the shoulder in place or allow the shoulder to move around in its range?

an example would be dips -- do you allow your shoulders come up your body as the body lowers, or do your shoulders stay in the same spot the whole time?

or on pullups -- do your shoulders stay locked, or does your body move up and down in relation to the shoulder joint?

[IronFist]

Oh no we're talking about those reverse shrugs again!

[IronFist]

PS. your Megaman avatar is awesome.

[fa_jing]

One approach is to keep you shoulders low during pullups and dips. I don't pay much attention to it though.

[rubthebuddha]

iron -- shaddap. right now i don't care which muscles are being used. i care more if it's a good idea to let the shoulder move around -- i'm thinkin shoulder health, period.

[Toby]

Shoulders, schmoulders - it's the lats you're using here :D.

Rub, this is strongly related to the PT exercises I'm going through now with my bum shoulder. In short, shoulders down with a bit of lat contraction is the way to go. I do unweighted pullups at the moment to make sure I'm doing it right. Dips (I haven't done them for a long time) I would do with shoulders up in the past, but not anymore. Easiest way for the doc to show me that it's a waste of time lifting them anyway was when he got me to lift my arm up straight to horizontal with my shoulder up and push up against his pulling down. It was an even match. Then, when I lowered my shoulder, I could easily outpush him. I was just in a habit of lifting my shoulder for everything, like reaching up to get something out of the cupboard, etc. But now, a bit of PT has fixed that.

[inic]

What exactly do you mean by shoulder level? I probably do the most pullups and dips on the board. I've never really paid attention to whats going on with the shoulders really, I usually look out for the elbows.

[Toby]

Like the difference between a shrugged position, with the shoulders up, and a relaxed (or forced down) position, with the shoulders down. Doc tells me the best is shoulder down (helped by lat contraction). Shrugs definitely have their place, though. You've just gotta be aware of your shoulder position, and I wasn't. I would probably shrug doing things like incline/decline/bench/military press and that wasn't good.