Hanging With Happy Shoulders
Hanging Out
Did you ever hang on monkey bars when you were little? I remember swinging from bar to bar without any trouble when I was young, and at some point, it got much harder to hang on a bar without feeling some sort of weird pinching. Even as adults, however, many people do some sort of hanging activity, generally for exercises like pull-ups, chin-ups, or toe touches. Some people hang from things for a sport or hobby such as rock climbing or aerial arts (my own personal favorite).
People do hanging exercises for a variety of reasons, and hanging can be a great full body exercise! However, it can also be a lot of stress on the shoulders if they are not correctly strengthened and engaged. If you’ve ever felt pinching or pain in your shoulder when doing pull-ups, you know what I’m talking about!
The overarching cue that we hear with hanging is to “pull the shoulder blades down and back”. The purpose of this cue is to engage the large muscles of the back, specifically latissimus dorsi. However, if we look at shoulder engagement from the standpoint of scapulohumeral rhythm, taking the shoulder blades “down and back” eliminates a large portion of our upper body stability and leads to a possible increase in pinching and impingement.
Scapulohumeral rhythm? What is that?
If you’ve never heard the term scapulohumeral rhythm, it can be a mouthful! This term simply refers to the action of the shoulder blade and the upper arm moving together to create a full range of motion in the shoulder. The arm moves roughly ⅔ of the way, and the shoulder blade takes the other third. This happens so that the head of the humerus (the ball portion of the ball and socket) stays nice and snug in the socket of the shoulder blade. This also puts the shoulder in a position where the rotator cuff muscles can do their job of keeping the shoulder joint suctioned together in all different positions.
Scapulohumeral rhythm? What is that?
If you’ve never heard the term scapulohumeral rhythm, it can be a mouthful! This term simply refers to the action of the shoulder blade and the upper arm moving together to create a full range of motion in the shoulder. The arm moves roughly ⅔ of the way, and the shoulder blade takes the other third. This happens so that the head of the humerus (the ball portion of the ball and socket) stays nice and snug in the socket of the shoulder blade. This also puts the shoulder in a position where the rotator cuff muscles can do their job of keeping the shoulder joint suctioned together in all different positions.
When we look at scapulohumeral rhythm, we can see that the shoulder blade needs to rotate upwards and elevate when the arm is raised in order to keep things from pinching around the shoulder. If we pull our shoulder blade “back and down” when holding arms overhead, we are putting the shoulder in a position where some of the rotator cuff muscles are being overstretched, and some of them might be getting caught in between the top of the humerus and the shoulder blade, causing pinching or pain.
What’s the solution?
One of the simplest ways to avoid pinching or pain with hanging is to allow the shoulder blade to fully rotate upwards with the arm. This might look like “shrugging” the shoulders upward a little bit to help engage those muscles, which is opposite from pulling the shoulders back and down. If you do a lot of hanging, you’ll also want to make sure that all of the muscles around the shoulders are strong enough to keep everything stable. This means getting plenty of upper body exercise like planks, push-ups, rows, and shoulder presses.
If you do happen to have pain or pinching with hanging that won’t go away, see a physical therapist! They can help you figure out what you need to do to get back to hanging with happy shoulders.
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