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Kettlebell Shoulder stretches for simple and sinister

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joemac

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Hi.

I have been doing simple and sinister since April and it is one of the best things I have ever done. It has changed my life and I love every minute of it.
I follow the book exactly. I perform the three warm up stretches beforehand and the two stretches afterward.
I have met with an excellent "Elite" Strongfirst coach in my area to make sure my form is good and to guide me.
I am making excellent progress, which motivates me to continue.
I have also decided to afterward continue with snatches and clean/press to attain the kettle bell certification. Why not?

My hips and the "general area around them" are tight, but I think no worse than for most people. They do not decrease "quality of life."
My main issue is shoulders, which are getting very tight. The "feelings" in my shoulder are...
1. Its as if my body is pushing my shoulders "up" and "forward" which causes tightness and discomfort when I move my arms and shoulders
2. There is tightness in the front shoulder too, around the clavicle
3. My neck becomes very tight, particularly the right side
4. My upper back, in the center, directly below where the neck starts is tight too
None of this is "pain", I just need to stretch the crap out of that area for several months.

I should note that I am right-handed. And I have noticed very clearly that single handed swings and getups are much much easier with my left hand than right hand, which is weird. I think my right side is more tight than left, but not sure.

I assume these are common problems to people who commit to simple and sinister. Are there any recommended "classic" or "standard" daily stretches that help with this? Is this what people call "T-spine mobility issues?" Is "Flexible Steel" what I need?

Thank you!

Ilya
 
A somewhat popular short mobility routine that can do wonders for your shoulder girdle, neck and upper back would be the Original Strength Resets from Tim Anderson that I can recommend myself.

There are a gazillion books on amazon from Tim Anderson that are more or less about the same types of drills.

-belly breathing
-Head nods
-rocking on your knees
-rolling
-crawling
-cross crawls

Can be done in 10 minutes and helps a lot with upper back, neck and shoulder mobility and stability. Highly recommended.

Here is a short video to give you an idea:


Here is a short article:

Simple Daily Reset Restoration Plan | Original Strength

originalstrength.net originalstrength.net

And I have noticed a similar thing as a right handed person: even though my left hand is weaker the swings and TGUs are a bit easier to do. In the turkish get up it could be because your support hand is working is actually having to support more weight. But I have no idea why the same is true in the swing.
 
Your form has already been checked and you say you are following warm up\cool down. Also, look at your recovery ie if your sessions are very frequent or harder than you ability to recover then you are setting up at fine balance. If something else shifts that balance in the wrong direction then injury would be the next step.

The early versions of the program minimum were done twice a week and so you can consider trying less frequent sessions. Perhaps temporarily back off to 2-3x a week for a couple of weeks and see if that helps. Also, consider not doing snatches and clean and press for that couple of weeks (at least). Some people would suggest that you should keep away from snatches and so on until you have met the timeless simple standard or are at least most of the way there. If you find that backing off helps then you can set the frequency and ease of your sessions so that you can progress better without the "niggles" you mention getting worse.
 
In addition to Original Strength resets I recommend
- Arm bars
- lacrosse ball massage (against a wall): pecs, traps, delts
- Rib grab rotation
- Brettzel

They work really well. I like to do arm bars and lacrosse ball massage together with the S&S stretches (cool down). The others I sometimes use during warmup to open up the t-spine. When you then load the improved mobility with TGUs you help your body to actually gain that mobility.
 
One other thing is to check your posture throughout the day and make sure you cool down with good posture. i.e. don't go and lounge asymmetrically straight after exercise.
 
joemac said:
My main issue is shoulders, which are getting very tight. The "feelings" in my shoulder are...
1. Its as if my body is pushing my shoulders "up" and "forward" which causes tightness and discomfort when I move my arms and shoulders
2. There is tightness in the front shoulder too, around the clavicle
3. My neck becomes very tight, particularly the right side
4. My upper back, in the center, directly below where the neck starts is tight too
Click to expand...
1) It sounds as if you may be pressing with your upper traps instead of with your “prime pressing muscles,” the pecs and deltoids. I have had a similar issue for a long time.

2) If the above is true, then it makes sense that you would have tightness around the clavicle. It's almost as if stabilizing muscles are trying to do more than just stabilize.

The shoulder blade must rotate up and around the rib cage in order to elevate your arm overhead. If you are shrugging up with your shoulder prematurely it may lead to the issues you just described, and/or your upper traps and the muscles around your neck may be picking up slack for the pecs, deltoids, and the scapular upward rotators like the serratus and lower traps.


This may be less of an issue of needing to stretch, and more of an issue of learning to coordinate your shoulders differently than you are. Try doing some getups with a lighter weight, pausing in the different positions, and making sure that you aren't squeezing your neck and face. I have had a similar issue with overhead pressing, and it's made a world of difference to use a lighter weight and see if I can move my head around without neck tension with the weight overhead. Maybe others will disagree or have different opinions, but I feel like learning how to tighten up in the correct places, and in the correct way is paramount. You want to tighten up the right muscles enough to do what you need to do, but without tightening up things that you shouldn't be tightening, if that makes sense.

+1 to Original Strength exercises.

As for some stretches, these two will hit most of what you need for general shoulder mobility:


squeeze your shoulder blades together behind your back. Don't stare at your knees.

 
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