5 Minute Shoulder Mobility Warm-up

by Mike Hanley

In this day and age we have such busy lives and schedules that it is crucial to make the most out of our time in the gym.  Many times we often forget the most important aspects of training and just go in and start throwing weights around.  In the long run this causes more problems than it saves time.  I get asked quite often how to get in all aspects of training with very limited time to do so.  When we think about training we think about strength, conditioning, flexibility,  mobility in that order when in fact it needs to be the complete opposite to stay in the game.  Mobility and flexibility of the joints, muscle tissue, ligaments and tendons surrounding those joints is crucial for maintaining a healthy body that can withstand heavy loads year in and year out.

Here is a great upper body warm up that incorporates dynamic warm-ups, mobility and muscle activation to prep our shoulder girdle, thoracic spine and rotators in 5 minutes.  It is a simple, quick and effective warm-up for upper body days.

Objective

To warm up and activate the muscles in  the shoulder region, upper back and thoracic spine.  Properly prepare our tendons, ligaments and muscle for the task to come and to improve joint integrity of the shoulder and thoracic spine.

Bodyparts Involved

Shoulder muscles including the all rotator cuff muscles, teres major and minor,  rhomboids and thoracic spine.

Warm-up

1.    Unilateral External Circular Rotations – 10x each arm
2.    Unilateral Internal Circular Rotations – 10x each arm
3.    Bilateral External Circular Rotations – 10x
4.    Bilateral Internal Circular Rotations – 10x
5.    Corkscrew Shoulder Twists – 20x
6.    Squat Position Unilateral Thoracic Mobility Reach – 10x each side
7.    Band Shoulder Dislocates – 10x
8.    Band Diagonal Shoulder Dislocates – 5x each way
9.    Band Pull Aparts – 10x
10.  Diagonal Band Pull Aparts- 10x each way

Give this warm-up a try on your upper body days or even on a squat day if your shoulder are tight.  It will help alleviate some tightness in the shoulder while squatting with a bar on your back.  Many times our shoulders get just as beat up on a squat workout as they do on a bench day.

This warm up is quick and it works.  If you are pressed for time it will take 5 minutes and your shoulders will feel like a million bucks

Author’s Bio

Check out Mike and his killer blog at http://www.hanleystrength.com .  He has a massive free report, you better go pick it up!

In honor of AMPED Warm-up, I am re-posting two previously released articles for all of our new subscribers.

Check out this essential hip mobility, how to warm-up article below.

You Are Going to Get Injured.

Yes, you will.

Sooner or later, the choices you make in the weight room will lead to injury. A severe injury or something minor is in your future, trust me on that!!

But you have a choice and if you act on it, you will see immediate results.

And you must make it immediately! You must take action right now without hesitation!

Change your workout. Change it NOW!

Because I know what you’ve been doing.

You haven’t been warming up. You haven’t been doing full range of motion movements. You haven’t been raising your core temperature before touching ANY weights.

This stops now!

I am here to make your workouts better and make you feel better.

What does training do to your body?

The SAID Principle and The Principle of Progressive Overload is based upon the foundation of tension. The more tension, the more adaptation. Good or bad. You are constantly striving to create more tension and more time under tension (TUT).

Good adaptations include building muscle and strength (combination of increasing cross sectional area of the muscle fiber – sarcoplasmic hypertrophy AND an increase in the number of myosin/actin filaments (sarcomeres) inside the cell – myofibrillar hypertrophy ), improved neural efficiency, tendon / ligament density, greater work capacity, development of specific physiological qualities (dependent upon volume, load, speed, tempo, implement, application), and so on…

Bad adaptations include the consequences of the recovery from heavy and prolonged strength training. Shortening of soft-tissues, adhesions and inhibition in movement is increased dependent upon % of tension (vs. current capacity), restricted range of motion movements coupled with current mobility limitations.

What does this mean?

If you load up a ton of freaking weight, day in and day out, and only perform short range of motion movements, you’ll be walking like Frankenstein and get injured from tying your shoe and farting at the same time.

Solution? Comprehensive, systematic, consistent application of a thorough, complete and all-encompassing warm-up and mobility drills prior to and after your strength training sessions.

Think I’m lying? Think I don’t know what I’m talking about? Think you don’t have time?

Bullshit.

I have been applying these techniques this year with not only myself, but all of my athletes. We’ve gotten stronger and my chronic injuries and limitations have gone away.

Now, if your goal is to lift heavy, lift often and lift hard for a few years, then screw it – who needs mobility work. But if you want to lift for a lifetime, then you better start doing these movements.

NOW.

You don’t want to be like this dude.

Essential Hip Mobility Movements

I just posted a new video of some really good hip mobility movements. These will get your heart pumping, open up your hips, improve your flexibility and get you moving again quick.

But you have to do them on a consistent basis. I’m not just talking about before lower body day, I’m talking about all the time.

Remember the previous post I put up about hip mobility and knee rehab? It showed how to open up the hips and activate the glutes. How about the lower back rehab post? With each post we are learning more and more and building more comprehensive workouts.

Right now we are concentrating on hip mobility.

Hip Mobility Exercises in the Video

Glute Stretch into Cossack
Wall Squats
Hip Flexor Stretch (Back Leg Elevated)
Hip Flexor / Quad Stretch
Hip Flexor Stretch and Reach
Bulgarian Split Squats
Striders into Rotational Lunges
Striders into Seated Glute Stretch
Fire Hydrants
Downward Dog into Quad Squat
Cobra into Dynamic Plough
Dynamic Adductors – Level 1 (Narrow)
Dynamic Adductors – Level 2 (Wide)
Dynamic Adductors – Level 3 (Horizontal Squat)

The Essential Hip

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If you’ve been around Diesel for any length of time you’ll know we have the most popular SHOULDER REHAB VIDEO on the internet.  At the time of this article, it has over 120,000 views and over 200 5-star ratings.

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