Overhead Squat Assessment 11 - Shoulders Elevate

The Overhead Squat Assessment 11 – Shoulders Elevate is a diagnostic tool used to check the movement pattern and determine the mobility and stability of the shoulders. Performed with a barbell, the exercise requires the lifter to keep the arms overhead and move into a deep squat. This assessment can reveal any limitations in shoulder mobility, as well as any asymmetrical movement patterns. Good overhead mobility and balance is essential for self-sufficiency and injury prevention in activities of daily living.

Transcript

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This is Brent coming at you with yet
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another overhead squat assessment video.
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In this video we're going to tie in the rest of our upper body dysfunction. I
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showed you guys arms fall in a previous video, in this video we're going to do
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that scapula elevation. I'm going to have my friend Mike come out, Mike's going to
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show a scapula elevation. It is part of his dysfunctional movement pattern, so
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this is a little easier for him to show. This is one of those signs where you
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guys may notice this happen before you even get into the dynamic assessment. If
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I go hey Mike throw your arms over your head, lock your elbows, and you can see
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him almost immediately. It's not just like, let's let's try to do arms up with
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keeping this depressed, i want you to actively keep this down. It's not this,
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this would be a much better pattern, a much better shoulder pattern that he's
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only getting upward rotation, but that his scapular stabilizers can keep them there.
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What you're seeing with Mike is as soon as I haven't throw his arms up, where
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does this scapula go, right everything goes up that way. Now the only reason we
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need the overhead squat is some people are better hiding it, they'll do that
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optimal pattern, and then they'll go down into their squat, and as they go into
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their squat all of this starts elevating up towards their ears. That's it, this is
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all that you guys are looking for. Thanks Mike. So let me break this down for you,
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this is not the easiest sign to break down. Scapular elevation correlates with
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downward rotation, and I know what you guys are thinking, you're thinking
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downward rotation, I just saw something move up, and you're right you did, what
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you saw was the superior angle of the scapula. So if this is my scapula, this
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triangle right, this is the superior angle, you saw the superior angle move up,
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but relative to the glenoid fossa right. So if it's superior to the glenoid fossa,
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my glenoid fossa is now facing down, that's actually downward rotation, and
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you're also seeing a little bit of this anterior tipping as the scapula crawl
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over the rib cage. So what does that say about muscular function, well my downward
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rotators are a lot of muscles you guys already know as
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tight, PEC minor, levator scapulae right that nasty little muscle on the neck,
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your rhomboids. How many of you guys get trigger points between your shoulder
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blades, look up all of these release techniques. I'm sure once you guys start
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doing, you'll be like oh yeah now I know why that stuff is tight. You have some
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stretches in there for those 2, anterior tipping you guys will notice for
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the most part it's the same muscles. So we have PEC minor and levator scapulae
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also up on this part of our graph. So we know that they're short, we know they're
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overactive for two different joint actions. This also adds the upper trap, a
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note on the upper trap guys a lot of play people blame the upper trap for
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being tight, being overactive, being the cause of their pain when actually it's
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the levator scapulae. Now our upward rotators, upper traps, lower traps and
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serratus anterior, these you guys need to learn how to activate, especially lower
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trap and serratus anterior. If you do not have this in your arsenal and you're
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trying to help people with upper body dysfunction, you need to learn some
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activation exercises here, learn your progressions. You can make powerful
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changes with this stuff, and as far as our posterior tippers you guys will
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notice it's the same. So you don't have a whole lot of techniques to learn. You
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guys see there's a lot of overlap. I know downward rotation, upward rotation, anterior,
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posterior tipping, probably some new joint actions for some of you, but
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overall the amount of techniques you have to learn is very small. There's only
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a few release techniques, a couple of stretches and a couple activation
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progressions for you to learn, and you can make huge change. I'll talk with you