I am helping one of my good friends from college get back into shape after some injuries caused him to get out of lifting for a while. He has been sending me his workouts for several weeks, and one of the first things I noticed was he has been doing too much volume in his pushing movements compared to his pulling movements.

Here is a video I shot today addressing this issue, and a quick rundown on what you can do to prevent shoulder pain and injury from setting in.

Shoulder Pain Prevention

One of the biggest causes of shoulder pain is a lack of strength balance between the anterior and posterior muscles of the torso.

When the muscles of the chest and front portion of the shoulder are too strong and the muscles of the back and rear portion of the shoulder are too weak, problems can occur.

This is just one of many causes of shoulder pain, but it is also one that can most easily be prevented.

The first step in preventing shoulder pain due to muscular imbalances is to make sure you aren’t setting yourself up for muscular imbalances. You can take a step in the direction here by making better exercise selections in your training.

The simplest way to do this is to choose exercises that will naturally begin to produce antagonistic balance, or strength balance between opposing muscle groups.

This will give you some examples that will help you make smart exercise choices that will promote antagonistic balance.

Exercise Selection To Prevent Shoulder Pain and Injury

Here are some easy exercise combinations that will compliment this approach of developing antagonistic balance.

Bench Press + Bent Over Row

Military Press + Pull-ups

Incline Press + Pull-downs

Close Grip Bench Press + Seated Narrow Grip Rows

Front Raise + Straight Arm Pull-downs

These exercise combinations will get you going in the right direction towards workouts that will still allow you to push big weight in the gym, plus they will help keep you going strong for many years because you will keep your shoulders healthier than someone else who overloads the pushing muscles and neglects the pulling muscles.

All the best in your training.

Jedd