3 Shoulder Stability Exercises to Supplement Your Training

3 Shoulder Stability Exercises to Supplement Your Training

You’ve had the goal of getting your first pull-up for months, or maybe of overhead squatting your bodyweight. Well now it’s time to take the practical steps to attaining those goals with some accessory shoulder work. We recently posted an article on the importance of doing accessory work in addition to your normal CrossFit program. This post will cover a few practical things you can add to your warm-up or cool down that will provide a quick and simple way to improve your shoulder strength and stability, and help you achieve these goals.

Shoulder strength and stability is a common deficiency in athletes and can be a factor in preventing achieving some of your goals. Here are three exercises with recommended sets and reps you can add to your weekly training that will drastically change your shoulder strength and stability.

Band Pull-Aparts: 3 sets of 10-15 reps
– Shoulders back and down
– Pinching scapula together at the top of the movement

Scapular Retractions: 3 sets of 10-15 reps
– Pulling your shoulders down and away from your ears
– No bend in the arms

Pull-up Negatives: 4 sets of 5-6 reps with 3-5 second descent
– Keep lats engaged throughout controlled descent
– Use box or low bar to scale, if needed

Check out Ring Rows & Scapular Retraction for more on shoulder stability awareness and exercises.

Invictus Upper Body Accessory Program

Do you love lower body, but shy away from pressing intensive workouts? Are strict pull-ups and handstand push-ups movements you hate to see? Let this upper body accessory program turn you into a pressing and pulling champion!

What You Get with the Program: Let’s face it here, just about everyone wants a stronger or more defined upper body. Not only is it great for aesthetics, but it’s great for performance as well.

We see it all the time where an individual is strong as can be, but lacking in one particular category when it comes to upper body strength. Maybe it’s their muscle endurance or raw strength, maybe their triceps are weak, maybe their chest or their shoulders are lagging behind everything else – or even worse, prone to injury. Or, maybe they have just neglected upper body accessory work because their focus has been elsewhere. Whatever the case may be, our Upper Body Accessory Program is going to help!