I’ve got some pretty winged scapulae. They’ve been like that for a while although they’re more stable now than they’ve ever been. Anyone got some good exercises for flattening these down to the wall of the chest? Thanks
You got weak serratus anterior and romboids, and tight pec minor. I got told it can also be a subscapularis weakness. quit benching for while and start rowing. too strengthen the serratus effectively you have to do overhead stuff. however, this is a dangerous movement when you have winged scapulae.
The scapulae are not part of the chest. The are attachment site for rotator cuff muscle, triceps, biceps, rhomboids, levator scapulae, and serratus anterior. It would seem that you are probably overdeveloping your anterior delts and chest muscles, being anterior/medially rotated can weaken the upper back muscles, namely the rhomboids which help to pull the shoulders back (serratus anterior along with pec minor help to bring the shoulder foward). Jerome is right with his advice to take a rest from benching and focus on rowing for awhile. Perhaps some internal and external rotaion exercises with light dumbells would help. If you can, pick up a book which illustrates muscle origins/insertions and their actions/fuctions
You can try doing straight elbow “push-ups” against a wall. When you can do sets of 15-20 without the scapula winging, go to hands on a bench/feet on the floor, then to regular pushup position, followed by feet on the bench and hands on the floor (these progressions may take several weeks- base the decision to progress on whether you can keep the scapula from winging).
This movement isolates scapular protraction and retraction as the only way you can move at all is to move from the scapula (your elbows stay straight). This is a great re-education tool and should take care of the problem. Also, before each set, stretch your pecs thoroughly to get them to relax and open up your range of motion in the scapula. Good luck.