Apollo Performance Therapy

I love a good shoulder airplane. I will say that they are much harder than they look.

They are great because:

you can do pushing and pulling variations

there are tons of ways to make them easier and harder

and you can change your focus to get different things out of them.

The key things to focus on when doing them are going to be:

1. Keep a long spine. We’re trying to move through the shoulder, so rounding/extending/side bending at your spine kinda defeats that purpose.

2. Keep your elbow still. Notice how little my elbow rotates as I do these? This makes sure you are actually controlling the movement through the shoulder, not just flailing around.

3. Focus on turning your sternum each direction. If you just move your shoulder blades but your sternum stays still, it may FEEL like you rotated….but you didn’t really go anywhere.

I have my hand on my sternum/ribcage during these videos as an easy reference for me to make sure that is the area rotating.

Love these as part of a warm-up or as an accessory mobility drill baked into a superset with your main lift of the day.

Every call I get on with a potential new client, there’s a couple things I always ask.

1. If they are already going somewhere else, what are they frustrated by. Usually, it’s the lack of any actual exercise, progression, or seeing how what they are doing is supposed to get them back towards their goals.

2. Have they had any testing done?

The answer is almost always no.

Let me tell you something…

If you are 3+ months out of a surgery, you should have some strength testing done, because that is what determines what you should be focusing on in your rehab.

Here’s an example testing progression for a knee surgery or injury:

1. Do you have close to equal range side to side and minimal swelling? Can you turn on your quad easily? No? Then you keep focusing on that until you can.

2. Can you do 15+ squats to a knee high chair at a controlled speed without the other leg helping? What about 15+ hamstring bridges on that same chair? What about 15+ single leg calf raises? No? Focus on those.

3. Can you produce ~60-70% of your body weight in force with your quad? No? Then you should focus on that.

(Note: no running happens until you can do at LEAST 2 AND 3 above)

4. Can single leg leg press 1.5x your bodyweight, single leg knee extend 0.8x your bodyweight?

5. Can you back squat 1.5x your bodyweight?

This is a progression because you’re going to have a tough time doing the next level unless you pass the previous one.

People want to start running based on vibes and being able to do the stairs in their house again. That’s dumb.

Don’t be dumb.

I use variations of this drill a LOT.

Sitting down takes balance out of the equation so you can really just focus on what your pelvis is doing.

You can use a stick if you need, but the goal is to not need it.

The best part is this teaches you the same exact movement that your need to perform at your hips no matter what lower body movement you are doing.

Hip flexion is hip flexion, I’ll just have more knee bend if squatting, and less if hinging.

It really opens some eyes around how much movement you ACTUALLY have at your hips.

For many people….its not very much.

So when you are going further into a range than you have available at your hips, it makes sense that you are going to have to get more motions from other areas (usually your spine).

Using your spine isn’t bad in any way, but if your finding you have issues with your back always getting pissy with squatting and deadlifting, I’d try this out to see how much control over the range you actually have.