Is he packing his shoulders or just externally rotating? If I pack my shoulders and do it against the wall, i can feel it lighting up my back. If I do it on the floor, and even if I'm packing, I only feel it in my low traps (so it might be too heavy for me?). If I don't pack and only externally rotate, I only feel it in the low traps. When I was doing Y drills at physio, I would only feel it in my low traps; packing the shoulders seems to be what makes it magic for me, so I might be doing the drill wrong, but in a way that is really beneficial to me. Fixing my body has always been frustrating.
At any rate, if I do it against the wall it feels like it activates a lot. I'll alternate it with the Y. Thanks for sharing!
As I'm sure you are finding out, it will likely take som experimentation to find what works best for you. Once you find something that works, you will know it. If you feel it mostly in one place, that doesn't necessarily mean that's the only area working. It likely means that's the area you are waking back up. I think the brain is more sensitive to unfamiliar sensations, and "sleepy" muscles produce those.
I don't think the guy demonstrating is "packing." I think we had a discussion about this somewhere on the forum recently, but I don't like the term "packing." The scapula has to rotate, and I think that the word "packing" is kind of used as a semantic trick to acheive that goal. I think the word is confusing in its connotations, though. If you think it works for you though, keep using it.
In the video I posted, you want to slide the palm along the floor to facillitate the scap rotating around the ribs via serratus and some lower trap. Once you slide out as far as you can without compensations, externally rotate the hand (palm up) and lift. The key is to try and keep your neck out of it. It takes some practice. Just let your arm sort of "relax and press into the floor" until it's time to lift it off, almost like you're washing the floor with a rag.
If you're doing the same kind of movement standing, facing a wall: slide your palm upwards along the wall in front of you as high as you can without compensations (keeping neck relaxed and letting my upper traps stay as relaxed as possible works for me), then lift away. Once again, the "washing with a rag" cue helps me a lot. Or maybe literally hold a bath towel (it has to have a
little bit of weight) against the wall and slide it up the wall to get a feel for it. Keep the face, neck, and upper shoulder relaxed throughout.
Sometimes playing with different angles will help you to find the sweet spot. It might be standing, bent at 45 degrees, laying on your stomach.... You don't want it to feel next to impossible, but you do want it to be a little bit of work. I emphasize the "little;" I think this stuff has to be approached more as a movement practice than strength training.
Anyway, without taking the thread on a tangent too far away from OS, I am more than happy to talk about this stuff in a dedicated thread.
