You wake up one fine morning enthralled to do what adds happiness to your virtues, only for the reality to dawn on you – you had a shoulder injury yesterday so you can no longer do what you always do. You have to downgrade some of the upper body workout with shoulder injury variations or even delete such exercises completely from the picture. But are you ready?
The transition from one exercise to another is never smooth because, for your body system to adapt to new changes, the essence of time is incontestable. Want to modify your upper-body workouts to suit your bad shoulders? Try these intriguing upper body workout with shoulder injury, and you’ll never regret it.
Seated Cable Rows
Experts have confirmed that pulling lifts benefit the shoulders more than pushing because they strengthen the back and stabilize the shoulders. Seated cable rows fall under this category and are widely prevalent gym exercises.
Make your seated cable rowing more intriguing and effective by using grip attachments that won’t force the hands together. It would be safer you opt for grip attachments that offer neutral hand position, ensuring the palms are positioned parallel to each other.
As you start, sit on your weight bench with the knees bent and feet clenched. Get hold of the bar and then pull it in the direction of your chest by stretching your back muscles. While doing so, ensure the core remains tight and the back flat. While maintaining a controlled motion, spread your hands forward. Now, repeat the movement several other times.
Upper Body Workout With Shoulder Injury – Inclined Bench Presses
Bench presses have been used for decades, and their effectiveness in toning upper body muscles is farfetched. Doing bench presses train your shoulders, pectorals, and arms, but the intensity and quality of the results depend on the bench press variation you use.
Bench presses are also popular among weight-training specialists because they are good for enhancing muscular endurance, upper body strength, and adding stamina to your upper body.
Not everyone can do bench presses successfully as not having the right upper body motion range could affect your workout. Position yourself on your bench, ensuring you adjust it to a 30-degrees angle. Now, set the hands such that they are about shoulder-width from the bar before you press the bar high. Lower it close to your chest and then repeat that several times.
Triceps Dips Placed Parallel to Bars
Triceps dips are the next exercise that will get you sweating and intensively exercising your upper body without aggravating your shoulder injury. However, not all triceps dips will be safe for your hurting shoulders.
Triceps dips done on the bench side are never safe for someone with shoulder pain because the position of the hands often makes the joints undergo dangerous internal rotation, which could stress the shoulders more. Triceps dips with parallel bars are the most effective and safest since they do not expose your shoulders to any potential risk.
Set yourself in a position such that you are at the center of the parallel bars while holding a bar with each hand, with the body elevated over the arms. Lower your body to a 90-degree angle, while keeping the elbows tucked. Once done, press back to the original position. You can do this as many times as your body is comfortable with it.
Upper Body Workout With Shoulder Injury – Neutral-grip Overhead Press
The next in line of the exercises you should try to work your upper body while protecting your shoulder injury is the neutral-grip overhead press. With this exercise, you will need to orient your body such that the palms and the hands face each other to reduce inward shoulder rotation and minimize pain.
Positioning your body that way helps you to maximize the amount of training directed to the delts while minimizing the pressure exerted on the shoulders.
With this exercise, you don’t need much except a dumbbell. To get started, you should stand such that the feet are hip-width from each other. Hold a dumbbell on each of your hands, and then push up the weights to a position over the shoulders, with your palms rested on an inward position. You must press the weight straight up and then lower the hands to the original position.
Why Would You Want to Work Out Your Upper Body?
The upper-body is made up of a group of muscles including those on your shoulders, hands, upper arm. The muscles linking your limps to the spinal column, chest, and torso are also categorized in this group. These muscles are very important in your everyday life because they are the ones you rely on to perform different pushing, pulling, and lifting tasks.
The muscles must be kept stable and strong. When pushing and pulling items, the lower arm muscles must rotate the hands so your forearm, wrist, and hand can extend to complete those movements.
The shoulder joints and muscles work by enabling your arms to move smoothly and efficiently in all directions. They are the muscles you need when completing tasks that involve moving the arms close or away from your body, over the head, to the back, or even rotating the arms.
An injury in any of these muscles could spell doom on your overall performance at work or in any other everyday activity you engage in. Physical activities are the most effective ways to help shoulder pain healing, while at the same time exercising the upper-body to enhance your performance and strength.
You could also read about if you should work out with shoulder pains.
Upper Body Workout With Shoulder Injury – Conclusion
Rarely will you ever go wrong with these upper body workout with shoulder injury exercises? The working mechanisms of these workouts are articulated to help work out the upper body muscles and parts, without putting pressure on the shoulder muscles. However, out of these exercises, you may be shocked to discover that only one or two work for you.
You can try them all to decide which ones your body is comfortable conforming to with ease. You can as well speak to a medical specialist to help you decide on which exercises to go for based on how severe your shoulder injury is.
