(These kinds of questions are always hard without an assessment but…)
something to consider here is are you making the problem worse?
In general, you have a goal of being able to move your arms forward and or overhead without pain i.e. without impingement. Yet all the exercises you’re doing involve practicing pulling the arms back and down.
- Pull ups, chin-ups, landmine row, 1 arm DB Row, Face Pull, Reverse Fly, Barbell Row, DB Pullover, Sumo Dead.
Every one of those pulls the shoulders down and back.
During proper overhead motion of the shoulder, the shoulder blades needs to move forward and upward. You’re intensely practicing the opposite motions.
Notice how the shoulder blade starts moving right around when the humerus (upper arm) gets to 90 degrees. If it doesn’t move up, the humeral head will impinge the acromion. This is why so many people have issues once they get their arms to 90 degrees or so- they’re lacking upward rotation.
We could go into the anatomy but I’d keep it simple initially. How are you going to get your arms overhead if you’re overwhelmingly training them to be good at staying down?
I know many have been berated with cues like “pull your shoulders down and back.” But these are almost always bad cues to embrace if you have a shoulder history. The shoulder quite literally has to move forward and upward in overhead motion. Practicing the opposite can cause muscle imbalances, as well as just bad habits.
I know this isn’t the question you asked but it is still relevant. Many of the clients I’ve had go down this path.
- Shoulder starts hurting during overhead pressing.
- They stop overhead pressing.
- They find they can still workout while keeping the arms in a horizontal plane (forward and backward)
- They work the hell out of those motions to still get a workout in
But meanwhile they are often making the problem worse, as they keep training the muscles which are already too trained.
Often what is needed is to embrace overhead motion and lighten it up on what they’ve been doing so much of.
Notice this person as they raise their arms. You can see their left rhomboid is activating as the person moves upward. That is, a muscle which should be doing largely nothing as it pulls the shoulders together, is activating:
(The shoulder blades should be moving apart during forward and upward motion, not together.)
That’s a person who doesn’t need any work pulling their shoulders together. They’re plenty good at that motion. They need practice not doing that.