Find out what is the worst shoulder exercise with the help of Jeff Cavaliere.
Jeff Cavaliere was the head physical therapist of the New York Mets for 3 years and is now a YouTube sensation. He delivers clear information without noise on his ATHLEAN-X YouTube channel.
As a physical therapist, you should consider his advice. So what is the worst shoulder exercise for bigger shoulders in his opinion? The upright row, especially if done with a barbell.
Source: Alexander Jawfox on UnsplashAccording to Cavaliere, the upright row will put your shoulders in the impingement position at the top of the movement. When done with a barbell, your hand positioning is fixed and there is not much room for movement which is what could cause pain in most athletes.
But instead of just focusing on the worst shoulder exercise, Cavaliere shows you a variation of the movement that is friendly to your shoulder rotation and it will also hit the right muscles. That is the dumbbell high pull.
By utilising dumbbells, your freedom of movement allows you to prevent shoulder impingement, which happens when doing the barbell upright row.
“We are actually going to be able to externally rotate by getting the hand higher than the elbow,” Cavaliere says. “When the elbow is higher than the hand, internal rotation, hands higher than the elbow, external rotation.”
Although it looks extremely similar to the upright row, only done with dumbbells, the high pull activates the entire deltoid (front and rear delts) – the upright row will focus only on the front delts.
If you are still unsure about the upright row or how to do the dumbbell high pull, check out Cavaliere’s video below.
The Worst Shoulder Exercise
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Image Sources
- Woman-with-Barbell: Alexander Jawfox on Unsplash