Workout of the Week: Supported Elbow Vehicles
Published on January 1, 2022 at 6:32 am, by Eric Cressey
The advantages of controlled articular rotations (Cars and trucks) are now perfectly recognized in the toughness and conditioning and rehabilitation realms, many thanks to Functional Range Conditioning teachings. 1 way in which we’ve progressed this strategy is by taking a nearer appear at the placement at which we complete our elbow Automobiles. Historically, they’ve been performed with the arms at the sides, like this:
https://www.youtube.com/observe?v=IkNR4qcGtiw
Nevertheless, I believe there’s a large amount a lot more benefit to be gained by performing them with the higher arms supported at 90 levels of flexion, specifically in an overhead athlete population.
https://www.youtube.com/check out?v=XalS_PvOdO8
Here’s why:
1. With additional shoulder flexion, we are capable to lengthen the very long head of the triceps over the two joints it crosses (elbow and shoulder). In the seated situation, the prolonged head of the triceps is actually shortened as a shoulder extensor.
2. In throwing athletes, you will generally notice Bennett’s lesions, regions of greater calcification along the posterior glenoid rim. For most athletes, they’re incidental conclusions in asymptomatic shoulders, but in some instances, they can get as well huge and bring about rotator cuff pathology (I relate it to a pace bump that the cuff has to go around). Whilst the accurate trigger of Bennett’s lesions has been debated in the sports activities medicine earth, a lot of are of the belief that it benefits from traction strain from the very long head of the triceps (LHOT) tendon. The tendon attaches on the supraglenoid tubercle (which is on the inferior element of the glenoid) and extends up to the labrum and joint capsule. LHOT also eccentrically helps prevent abnormal elbow flexion all through the cocking period of throwing (think of it being heavily lengthened in a shorter catcher-like arm motion).
So, no matter whether you consider it’s similar to Bennett’s lesions or not, there’s a powerful anatomical foundation for us to say that the very long head of the triceps is an very crucial – but heavily underappreciated – muscle mass for overhead athletes. I’ve viewed a good deal of throwers over the yrs who’ve benefited immensely from handbook treatment on the triceps – and this mobility drill is a valuable proactive initiative that’ll aid the lead to as well.
3. At positions of 90 degrees of shoulder flexion or more, we get higher serratus anterior recruitment to push the rotational ingredient of scapular upward rotation – but also a reduction in latissimus dorsi tone that can prohibit it. This is notably crucial in athletic populations that tend to have a great deal of extensor tone and stay in scapular despair and/or downward rotation. It also presents these individuals a crack from competing towards gravity, so it can basically decrease protective rigidity of the higher traps.
4. Setting up on this past level, serratus anterior also is effective to protect the convex-concave romantic relationship amongst the scapula and rib cage, which is particularly critical to tackle in the aforementioned athletes who may possibly have acquired flat (extended) thoracic spines in excess of yrs of extension/rotation. These athletes crave achieving, rounding, and rotating.
You can increase this to a warm-up, use it as a filler, or plug it into a cooldown. Choose your time with just about every rep, and be certain to push not only total elbow flexion/extension, but also pronation/supination of the forearm.
If you are hunting to understand a bit more about prolonged head of the triceps, I’d really encourage you to verify out my Durable Shoulder Solutions program, as I delve into it fairly a bit as section of my higher extremity purposeful anatomy module.
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