Scapula Movement w/ Exercises?

  • while doing bench press is the scapula retracted throughout the whole movement or only during the eccentric to get a stretch in the pecs?

  • again in the dumbell front raises, lateral raises and rear lateral raises is the scapula retracted or allowed to move forward?

I retract my scapula hard during bench press, I feel more solid and can press more weight this way.

Personally-
I don’t really worry about my what my scapula are doing in front raises, I guess they are neutral and move a little, naturally, I guess.
Lateral raises, they stay neutral and move very little due to the nature of the movement.

Rear laterals I’d be interested to hear other’s opinions on-
I do them a little like I do rowing movements, forward at the bottom of the movement, though perhaps not quite so much as in a row, retracted hard when the movement is completed… Although now that I’ve thought about it, on the rear delt machine my scapula start retracted a fair bit more through the movement and so move a lot less…

thnks

even i wud like to hear more on rear lateral raises

-the scapula stay retracted throughout the entire motion of the bench press, this makes for a better and stronger line of pull for the pecs.

-front raises, scapulas natural action is abduction (moving away from the midline) and upward rotation, the serratus anterior is responsible for the movement of the scapula during this motion. If you tried to retract your scapula, it would have little effect on anything really. lateral raises scapular retraction I believe to be pointless as they have basically nothing to do with the motion.

And rear raises, depending on how you are doing them. If your arm goes behind your back, the scapula adduct (move towards the midline) and downardly rotate. The rhomboid major would be the primary mover. If you are doing more of an extension movement at the side, retracting your scapula will increase tension in the rhomboids and lats, but more than likely decrease the range of motion (and thus likely result in less posterior delt action).

I really don’t think for any of these exercises that you should really focus on retracting the scapula unless you are working on weakness and discrepancy in any of the muscles I mentioned.

[quote]carlthescorp wrote:
-the scapula stay retracted throughout the entire motion of the bench press, this makes for a better and stronger line of pull for the pecs.

-front raises, scapulas natural action is abduction (moving away from the midline) and upward rotation, the serratus anterior is responsible for the movement of the scapula during this motion. If you tried to retract your scapula, it would have little effect on anything really. lateral raises scapular retraction I believe to be pointless as they have basically nothing to do with the motion.

And rear raises, depending on how you are doing them. If your arm goes behind your back, the scapula adduct (move towards the midline) and downardly rotate. The rhomboid major would be the primary mover. If you are doing more of an extension movement at the side, retracting your scapula will increase tension in the rhomboids and lats, but more than likely decrease the range of motion (and thus likely result in less posterior delt action).

I really don’t think for any of these exercises that you should really focus on retracting the scapula unless you are working on weakness and discrepancy in any of the muscles I mentioned. [/quote]

Nice.

And that’s that thread lol.

[quote]rasturai wrote:
carlthescorp wrote:
-the scapula stay retracted throughout the entire motion of the bench press, this makes for a better and stronger line of pull for the pecs.

-front raises, scapulas natural action is abduction (moving away from the midline) and upward rotation, the serratus anterior is responsible for the movement of the scapula during this motion. If you tried to retract your scapula, it would have little effect on anything really. lateral raises scapular retraction I believe to be pointless as they have basically nothing to do with the motion.

And rear raises, depending on how you are doing them. If your arm goes behind your back, the scapula adduct (move towards the midline) and downardly rotate. The rhomboid major would be the primary mover. If you are doing more of an extension movement at the side, retracting your scapula will increase tension in the rhomboids and lats, but more than likely decrease the range of motion (and thus likely result in less posterior delt action).

I really don’t think for any of these exercises that you should really focus on retracting the scapula unless you are working on weakness and discrepancy in any of the muscles I mentioned.

Nice.

And that’s that thread lol.[/quote]

x2 lol