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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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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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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.