tested our shoulder program in the month of November. I did 28/29 sessions. On average, a session took me ~15 min.
before we get going, two important things to call out:
- My shoulder bothers me from time to time. Mostly feel pain when benching, and sometimes when I practice my serve or throw the football for too long
- my shoulder pain has never come close to restricting me from doing anything I want
Overall Program Experience
think the program was worth doing despite not dealing with major shoulder pain. If you want to improve your range of motion and strengthen the shoulder and surrounding muscles, this is worth it. The program has also most likely given me enough knowledge to manage shoulder pain for the foreseeable future
Plan structure
- Daily smash (2 min): two min myofascial release for a specific part of body (lat, pec, scalene)
- Daily maintenance (4-5 min): one extension on foam roller, one stretch for 4-5 min total
- 6 days/week strength exercises (6-8 min): exercises require no to minimal equipment
Pros
- Eliminated pain while bench pressing
- Tennis serves becoming easier on my shoulder, and i’m more likely to repeat the motion
- Forced me to re-evaluate shoulder lifting & more broadly, what training for performance looks like for me
Cons
- You have to be really focused on doing the work every day. I gave this plan to two other friends who did not finish the plan (this is why we are a pay-to-play operation)
Learnings
- Programs take one week to learn and three weeks to execute. Keeping people engaged and motivated in week one will be one of our most important tasks
- Joint angle measurements are not as valuable as I imagined. More important was to identify what was bothering me before the program and track those “symptoms” throughout
In conclusion, I think it’s important we consider our program more of a class/course vs. a program. The knowledge from program could and should last long enough to create a lifetime of positive habits.
Excited to share more soon
gcs