The Best Shoulder Strength Exercise – Bar None
COVID has brought about many travesties and hardships to us all. Times are indeed tough – we cannot visit loved ones or get outside for hours on end to enjoy the delicious Melbourne winter weather (which seems to be one of the more mild ones in memory just to rub it in our faces). Gyms are closed, and so are our favourite restaurants and bars – this has forced me into finding a different type of bar to pass the time and get me through COVID lockdown 2.0 – the kettlebell arm bar.
Before you start worrying that I may have hung up my drinking hat for a life of sainthood I can assure you that as soon as the bars are back open, I will be one of the first to be banging on the door asking the publican to let me in. But for now, having some more time to dedicate to getting a pesky, recurrent shoulder niggle back under control is somewhat of a silver lining.
The kettlebell arm bar is a great exercise to improve your strength, mobility and stability all while giving your thoracic spine a nice opener as well. Not since Maccas were slinging cheeseburgers for a gold coin donation have we seen such great bang for your buck.
I once heard someone describe the shoulder joint as a golf ball sitting on a tee. And this is a pretty apt description as the humeral head (top of your arm bone) is far larger than the glenoid fossa (part of the scapula) that it articulates with. The capsule and passive structures around the shoulder provide little stability to the joint, this means the active structures, operatively the muscles, play a massive roll in controlling the shoulder.
The other difficulty with the shoulder is that the scapula is also a very mobile articulation as it moves around the rib cage throughout different planes. The scapula has a highly variable motion between individuals. This is where the arm bar can really help you to learn how to control your shoulder blade, prepping you really well to attack any sort of press or pull exercise.
I have been incorporating a lot of these lately not only into my programming but also for clients who need some assistance with shoulder mobility, lat activation and learning to use their lats and serratus anterior throughout pressing exercises.
So here goes:
1. Lay on your back with your kettlebell in one hand. Press it to the roof and lock out the elbow
2. Bend the knee up on the same side as you are holding the bell. Take the opposing hand up above your head
3. Push through the foot, rolling yourself onto your side. Keep your arm pointing vertically to the roof. At this point it is really important to try and activate the lat by depressing the shoulder blade – this should pack your shoulder into a nice and stable position
4. Take your top leg over to the floor – from here you can continue to rotate through your thoracic spine, maintaining the scaps squeezed back and down and your gaze on the bell
5. Maintain this position for a few nice controlled breaths and then reverse the motion to come back to the start
Voila, now you can knock out the kettlebell arm bar. Feel free to thank me when you have shoulders like boulders and are turning heads in your muscle tee when Melbourne finally opens back up in time for Summer!
Scott Dadswell - Physio
This is Scott, one of our amazing Physio’s. He wrote this blog on the kettlebell arm bar, so you can be a jet like him. Book in with him here!
