Serratus Anterior Isolated Activation

Serratus Anterior Isolated Activation is a type of strength conditioning exercise that targets the serratus anterior, which is a muscle located on the upper torso near the shoulder. This exercise helps to strengthen and improve the mobility and stability of the shoulder girdle by contracting the serratus anterior muscles. It works to activate, or wake up the muscles for better coordination, power, and function. The use of this exercise helps to decrease shoulder pain and shoulder impingement by

Transcript

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My name is Brent, President of B2C, and we're going to discuss serratus anterior activation.
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Serratus anterior is a muscle that has a propensity to get weak in upper body dysfunction, as
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we get stuck in downward rotation and we lose the ability to upwardly rotate our scapula.
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I'm going to have Salvina come over here and demonstrate our favorite serratus anterior
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activation.
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Many of you guys have probably heard of wall angels.
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Wall angels are a great exercise because they help us get our
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overactive synergists, meaning, our
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subscapularis and our pectoralis minor, out of the way. So, we're going to retract and bring her
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shoulder blades against the wall. That will get pec minor out of the way. I'm going to make sure she is drawn
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in, her back is nice and flat. Head's back in a chin tuck, so we're all aligned in good posture.
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Then we need to start working on this upward rotation component of serratus anterior.
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We'll start with the most regressed version.
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We're just going to do scaption.
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I'm going to have her go ahead and point her thumbs forward, because that's going to give her some space
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up here so she won't have to reach as far back.
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She's going to reach back and touch the wall.
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For people with a little bit of flexibility issues, strength issues, that's going to be a challenge
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Just to try to get the point of the thumb back to the wall is going to be a really huge
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challenge.
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We can progress that by then having her tuck the thumb.
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And now trying to get this part of her hand all the way to the wall, so that's a nice
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little progression and extensibility and strength.
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And then we can progress this, this scaption against the wall, one more time, by reaching
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a little more straight up above your shoulders.
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Right.
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Once your client can do that, we can go ahead and progress to the wall angels that everybody
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has seen.
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So now she is going to go ahead and go arms back, once again, this external rotation reciprocally
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inhibits her subscapularis.
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The retraction of her shoulder blades being against the wall, inhibits her pectoralis
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minor.
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Now, we're going to work on that upward rotation component of the serratus anterior by just
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going through a shoulder press like motion with her hands, forearms, and elbows against
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the wall.
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Most people when they start doing this, will not be able to get very high.
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In fact, this is very good.
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Go ahead and repeat that a couple of times.
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Ideally, if somebody had optimal serratus anterior strength, optimal extensibility of
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their glenohumeral joint, as well as their scapula, they would be able to get their hands
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all the way up with their thumbs touching each othe,r without their elbows leaving the
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wall, which is a really, really big challenge.
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Now guys, this is a great progression.
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Most people can start here.
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If for some reason, you have a client, that they can't even start with the scaption against
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the wall, go ahead and move this whole progression to lying in a crunch-like position with legs
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bent on the floor.
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Repeat the same thing, and do scaption with all of the thumb progressions, straight over
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the head, you can do, "floor angels" instead of "wall angels" to get the same strengthening
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effect and then progress to the wall.