Which Exercises Don't Make Shoulder Impingement Worse?

Ok, I realize this has probably been beat to death but honestly I cannot find shoulder exercises I can do with an impingement. Lots of rehab stuff though.

I’ve rehabbed this before but it never really gets better. It seems better for awhile then comes right back. I have to do neutral grip everything now (including pullups) and minimal chest exercises. Only do diamond push ups atm (I know these mainly target tris) and neutral grip db chest press. Lying chest flys are out of the question and so are any variation of a shoulder press.

This is very frustrating because I’m doing my own programming. Any ideas on how to at least keep my shoulder muscle while trying to slowly make this better. I have no access to machines or cables. Only barbell, plates, db, bands. I can provide the specific upper body exercises I currently use. Thanks

Rule of thumb is if it hurts… don’t. Will just make things worse/prolonged.

Even with limited equipment there’s probably exercise variations you’ve not tried. Loading/intensity and volume are also variables you can play around with.

Not much exercise variety but between pull ups, rows (I assume you do too) and neutral grip DB press you cover all the major muscles of the upper body including front/rear delts. What areas do you feel are lacking?

Some stuff you could try (depending on the severity and manner of shoulder impingement might be a no go) :

Landmine presses. Play around with it in terms of loading and angles and you might find something you can do.

Push ups / DB presses at various angles. Some people find they can press without aggravating their symptoms at other joint angles e.g. spectrum of decline to incline. With a bit of work bands can be rigged up to do flyes decline also.

If all pressing is an issue go ham on pulling movements almost like a specialization program. Fixes up posture and push/pull imbalances and the backing off on aggravating movements gives the shoulder time to settle fully.

Is resolving the impingement possible? Seeking professional guidance or second opinions/fresh perspectives? Surgery? Perhaps you’re one of the unlucky individuals with glass shoulders?

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Thank you for the detailed response. This all begin when I started at a gym with a trainer trying to build my shoulders up more (never had any pain anywhere previous to this while lifting heavy and 5 days a week). I had been lifting for a few years but with subpar form in certain exercises resulting in bigger traps/biceps/tris/ etc but smaller shoulders. So we went hard on upper body 4 days a week with 1 lower.

When I started having the shoulder pain I went through physio for approx 2 mths 3 days a week and took out chest exercises and some shoulder ones. I focused heavily on building my back even stronger. This helped immensely.

Fast forward to adding in bench press and overhead press since we felt I was capable again…had to pull bench out and the overhead press did me in. The pain has been on and off ever since and that was around 5 mths ago.

I currently do pullups, chin ups, landmine rows, 1 arm db rows, face pulls, reverse fly, barbell rows, db pullovers. I also do sumo deads, rdl’s, good mornings, reverse hypers on my leg days (mixed in with my other leg exercises). I only do minimal chest and light weight front and side laterals.

I managed to hold a 25lb plate over my head, with no pain, while doing lunges the other day so that was a win.

I think you have many good ideas and I’ll try the decline bench flys and see how that goes, since I’ve tried incline and flat already. The landmine press might work too if I use both hands together. I might have to just bite the bullet and go back to physio. Using too much volume or weight like you said could be it. It’s just sometimes scary when you back off, think it’s better, ramp up a bit and it comes back…makes you wonder if it will ever get better.

I would maybe leave out upright rows if you do them. Also if you do behind the neck shoulder presses, if it hurts, either don’t do them or adjust your form. The other person said it well, just my personal opinion, I know there are probably a lot of experienced lifters that know more than I do about it.

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Thank you for the response. No I stopped upright rows over a year ago and have never done the other exercise. Those are definitely good tips because my physio therapist told me to stop upright rows back then. I never reintroduced them just in case.

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It may be time to consider that your shoulder position during some of these exercises is incorrect. It’s quite possible you just have bad shoulders, so don’t take that the wrong way, I’m just saying - it’s easy to start being super selective with exercises without addressing the problem in the first place. You may want to post some form videos online and let people examine them. If you’re shrugging your shoulders at all during any of the pressing exercises, impingement isn’t just likely, it’s inevitable.
Do you do regular band pull aparts, internal/external rotation, and dislocations?
Have you had any x-rays to diagnose a possible torn labrum?
Finding the root cause is more important than the right exercise right now.

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Hey, thanks for the reply. I worked with a highly qualified trainer so the form thing is disheartening because she was awesome. You are certainly bringing up a very real possibility though.

I stopped using social media around 3 years ago so I never post or upload things. This is the first forum I’ve used in years and the only one. I tried uploading a squat video but I need to put it on YouTube first? Anyways, that’s why I never post form videos.

I have been using exercises to compensate and work around it, you’re right there, which I guess isn’t the best move. I just thought by letting it rest, it would get better. I do all the rehab exercises you advised but I still have the issue. I was even told to stretch and loosen my pec muscles up more since that was the problem…hasn’t helped.

Maybe it’s time for an x-ray…

I have been susceptible to shoulder impingement over the years, and I’m currently battling it. I find that barbell pressing is the worst for me, and more inclined the worse it is.

For “pushing” without pain, I can do dips (even weighted) with no pain. Also, I can do plate raises and push ups of most varieties.

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Thanks for the reply. Yes, same here with the presses and incline.

Also, I can do most pushups, currently doing diamond. I front raised a plate over my head for lunges yesterday with no pain. Dips don’t hurt me either off a bench but off a dip machine they do.

I have chronic trouble with impingement, and have for many years. I have not done a barbell press of any sort in at least 10 years. I cannot squat (with a barbell), because I can’t get my hands behind the bar.

The solution, as you are learning, is to discover (through trial and error) those relatively few exercises you can do without aggravating the impingement–because the more you aggravate it, the worse it gets. For me, machine- and cable-work have been a lifesaver. Unfortunately, the paucity of equipment you listed–I assume you work out in a home gym–severely limits your ability to identify your ‘lifesaver’ exercises. Thus, you might have to find a way to get to a commercial gym. If you can’t, you’ll have to make do with the few exercises you’ve found thus far, and downregulate your goals and expectations to match.

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Hi thanks, yes I’m in a home gym now. I just left my gym 3 weeks ago. Just trying to figure out any ideas people might have had with this problem and how they go about it. My shoulder has been on/off so I thought I could just figure out what most often works or doesn’t for most people.

My goals are really close to where I’m at so that’s a good thing! I just love the entire process and it is amazing to see what your body can accomplish. I do it all because I truly enjoy it. I want to make sure I’ll be doing it for as long as humanly possible :slight_smile:

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(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.

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Wow! Very awesome answer! I started working out at home again so I have no access to machines to “help” with my lifts. (Might renew gym membership).

Anyways, the pain hurts as I try to lift a weight just past shoulder to overhead to get into position. Once the weight is up, it’s ok. It’s the raising and lower at the 90° like you mentioned. So I can never get any weight into an over head position anymore without assistance. Db chest flies on any angle and chest presses on any angle are horrible. Front raises are fine, lateral raises are fine (light weights). Lat pulldowns with pronated grip are not doable. This might give you more of an idea. Also tried renegade rows…put too much pressure on the arm the was holding me up.

All you have said makes perfect sense. I will watch the videos you posted. So you think doing some pressing with extremely light weights/bands just to rehab the motion would be the way to go? Maybe back off a bit on my other pulling exercises? I’ve got enough muscle built up anyways so I’m not worried about that. I’d love to do some more chest work again but do you recommend which exercises are ok. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks so much for your help!

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My traps are also very thick and prominent if that makes a difference. They loved to do the work before I learned proper form! Bis and tris also quite big for a girl in comparison to most people I see. My back is fairly strong I think, my best neutral grip pull up set is 9 strict form in a row.

Issues with horizontal pressing are often different than vertical. In other words, what causes issues in a bench press is often different than an overhead press.

In benching, people often get sensitive to the bottom of the motion, as the elbow moves past the shoulder. Pain is common in the front of the joint. The isn’t typically from impingement, at least not in the colloquial sense of the acromion pinching the supraspinatus.

Think of it like a lever. As the elbow (bottom of the lever) moves back, the head of the shoulder (top of the lever) will at some point start moving forward:

(This can cause impingement of the biceps tendon, but that’s not typically what people are referring to when they use the word.)

An easy way to get around this to still be able to press / work the chest some is simply limit how low the elbow can go. Floor Pressing is my favorite substitute:

You just don’t let the elbow go that far behind the shoulder. If that doesn’t work, then you can place a pad under the elbow to really limit how much range of motion the shoulder gets.

As far as overhead motion, it’s often not so much what you do but how you do it. For instance, you seem to have a good deal of sensitivity to internal rotation with overhead motion- as you raise the arm, if you let your palm turn in (usually necessitates internal rotation of the shoulder), then you have pain. If you don’t, then you feel better.

You’ve already hit on some substitutes for this then- use a neutral grip.

The other aspect to appreciate here is what are you doing during the day? For example, if you mouse in a way that’s constantly bringing your shoulder into extension:

then that could be one reason the shoulder is so sensitive to extension with exercise: you’re already doing the motion a lot.

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I wanted to show some more about what I mean about upward rotation. You mentioned raising the arms in front of you vs raising them to your side.

Check this person out when raising the arms in front of them:

Looks good. Notice the shoulder blade upwardly rotating:

Now notice when they raise the arms out to their side:

Not so great. Shoulder blades are downwardly rotated:

And notice how their shoulder blades look at 90 degrees:

They’re all bunched together.

Hope that’s more clear now. Wanted to expand some more and what I meant between it’s not so much what you do but how you do it.

That said, if you’re doing a bunch of activity which does this to your shoulder blades,

Then what you do starts to matter more, as it’s harder to break that habit when you’re regularly engaging in it.

You also might be fine at lighter weights, but as the weight goes up, you become more likely to bunch the shoulders. In which case you have to diligently work on technique as the weight goes up.

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Ok, so one more thing, I can stand and raise a 25lb plate straight up in front (with 2 hands holding it and arms extended straight ahead throughout the entire motion) then overhead, hold it over my head, all in one pain free motion.

I CANNOT in any position (incline, flat, decline, straight overhead) raise even a 5-10 lb weight into an overhead position with the bad shoulder. I’ve even tried supporting it with the good arm but it still hurts.

Why does the front plate raise to overhead work but not the second scenario I gave? The second arm helping cant be the reason because I’ve tried helping the bad arm along with the good one in the second scenario.

This does cause me problems. I dont ever bench anymore (a lot of the reason was initially because I was told my chest was too tight, causing the shoulder pain, so stretch etc and pull out most chest exercises).

I have to guess here without seeing these motions, but my first guess would be when you do anything on a bench, you have the habit of squeezing your shoulder blades together.

Whereas when you raise the plate in front of you standing, you allow your shoulder blades to move more freely.

Have you tried a horizontal cable press? Something like this

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I have done these but not for awhile. I’m currently working out at home with no access to a cable machine. :frowning: