Should I clip my shoulder blades when pulling hard?

Do you want to clip the scapula when pulling hard

Do you want to clip the scapula when pulling hard, we all know that hard pulling is a very important part of the fitness program, but many people do not know the correct way of hard pulling, and often cause physical injury as a result.

Should I clip my shoulder blades when pulling hard 1

The posture and position of the shoulders in hard pulling is very important! A good shoulder position will help you pull heavier!

A lot of misconceptions are often heard about shoulder posture! Many people often say to lift your chest, retract your shoulder blades back, and bring your shoulders back.

Is this really right? Maybe sometimes it's not the right cue.

Point one: retracting the scapulae back increases the distance the bar travels

"Retract the scapulae back together in an effort to increase the tightness of the back," but this actually increases the distance the bar travels. Tucking your shoulder blades together makes your arms shorter, making it harder for your hands to grab the bar.

Second: Not keeping the latissimus dorsi under tension

Retracting the shoulders back and retracting the scapulae makes it impossible to connect to the latissimus dorsi! Strong, powerful latissimus dorsi muscles provide more stability to the spine during hard pulls while preventing the back from rounding up during the movement.

Third: Squeezing your shoulder blades as you pull the barbell up can cause you to push your chest out too much and cock your ribs, leading to the risk of hyperextension of the lumbar spine!

The hard pull requires a lot of back muscle involvement, though it's not as active a force as you might think! The isometric contraction of the back muscles is full of tension and is responsible for stabilization and force transmission, protecting the spine from being taken away in a neutral position and not generating movement without a change in the normal physiological curvature of the spine!

What do you do?

The scapula plays a stabilizing role in the hard pull.

Keep your scapula steady in the pocket, in its natural position, and hold it there throughout the hard pull, not requiring you to make it move! Also keep your shoulders slightly externally rotated to pull the barbell tight, this will help you to activate the latissimus dorsi muscles.

Should you clip your shoulder blades during a hard pull2

Mistake #1: Head up

Many people think that the position of the cervical spine seems like an insignificant issue, but in fact, it may be hiding something small! Excessive lifting of the head may cause the center of gravity to shift backward, making it easy to become unstable. At the same time, cervical spine problems often affect the stability of the shoulder girdle area or the entire spine.

Mistake #2: Hunching and arching

Hunching is the most dangerous of all pulling mistakes, and it can add up until it destroys your lumbar spine! And arching just the opposite of hunchback, some people will want to avoid the phenomenon of hunchback, very deliberately "head up", the results instead of doing the spine overstretching action, resulting in the lumbar spine around the stabilization of the muscle groups in the excessive tension, the results of doing not a few hips and the back of the legs do not feel, and the lower back of the early fatigue! This is the first time I've ever seen a woman with a bad hip, and I've never seen a woman with a good hip!

Mistake #3: Moving the calf forward or back

Whether the calf is moving too far forward or back, it affects the center of gravity, and once the center of gravity changes too much, it changes where the pressure is concentrated, which can cause some joints to bear pressure they don't need to bear and lead to injuries. There is also the possibility that a change in joint movement patterns may prevent the target muscle group from being reached (because a change in joint movement = a change in the muscle group being used).

Mistake #4: Barbell away from the body

When the weight on your hands is moved forward away from the midline of the body, the center of gravity will shift forward, and the body will use the erector spinae muscles to extend the spine (trying to pull the center of gravity back in) to prevent it from collapsing forward, with the most tension usually in the lower back, which is where the mistake occurs. If you do this too often, you'll start to feel like you're losing your back.

Mistake #5: Knees and hips out of sync

It's not uncommon to see a lot of hard pullers push their hips up to the highest level, which means that the knee joints first do a "straightening" motion, which makes one of the main muscle groups, the posterior chain of the legs, fall into a position where they can't get out of their sockets.

Mistake:6: Shrugging

Unstable scapulae and an involuntary shrug of the shoulders when pulling up a barbell is a problem for many beginners, and you need to imagine that your whole body, with the exception of your lower extremities, is at a standstill, and that all you have to do is deaden your shoulders.

Mistake #7: Top Clamping the Shoulder Blades

A lot of people in the gym top their backs when they pull up the barbell, thinking that clamping the shoulder blades will build more back muscle, but it's completely redundant. Squeezing your shoulder blades when pulling up a barbell can make you too chesty and cock your ribs, leading to the risk of hyperextension of the lumbar spine!

Remember: in a hard pull, your back muscles are the strong stabilizing muscles not the ones that dominate the movement! Keep your shoulder blades in their natural position, down and slightly back.