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Dolphin Pose for Shoulder Clicking

How to Fix Shoulder Clicking & Popping: Two Solutions

2 Ways to Reduce Clicking in Your Shoulders
Video Transcript
Hey guys it’s Dean welcome to Man Flow Yoga and this is a short video about how to reduce shoulder clicking, popping or grinding in your shoulders in your chest. So if you’re like most guys or most people who work, out at some point or another you’ve experienced grinding or kind of clicking in your shoulders when you reach your arms overhead or when you’re doing a bench press or when you’re doing a military press lifting your arms overhead.

Now, the reason for this, and what that is, is a muscle and or tendon going over a bone…okay so that’s what happens when you hear that clicking, and is it a bad thing? It can be a bad thing if it doesn’t hurt it’s not a bad thing, but eventually, it’s an indicator that eventually something will happen if you don’t address it. So if your shoulder clicking has no pain now that’s good but it might start to hurt later.

So what can we do about it? Two things and these are the two things that I recommend for everybody who’s experiencing these issues.

Number one is strengthening your back. So chances are that you do a lot of pushing right and even if you don’t specifically focus on pushing when you’re at the gym when you are walking around during the day, when you’re sitting at your desk, the muscles that are engaged are the muscles in the front side of your body your anterior muscles, and those posterior muscles, the muscles in their back are being neglected. So what you need to do in your workout is start doing more back exercises, start doing more rows, start doing more lat pull-downs, more push-ups, more scapular strength in the area–so start working on increasing the strength of the muscles around your shoulder blades.

Number two is to work on the flexibility of your upper torso. So that includes shoulders but let’s think of everything that connects to your shoulders. We have pecs, we have the muscles on the tops of your shoulders, we have your traps we have your rhomboids, we have your biceps, your triceps, so everything from right the mid-torso up, affects your shoulder flexibility.

So the second thing you can start doing is improving the flexibility of your upper body. Now how do you do that? You do that by focusing on a practice by participating in a physical fitness discipline that specifically focuses on flexibility. Chances are if you’re doing functional fitness, CrossFit or if you’re just weightlifting that you’re probably not doing that flexibility focus. So what I recommend is doing yoga twice per week so it doesn’t have to be five days per week, you don’t have to go join a yoga studio, you don’t have to chant, you don’t have to light candles, you just have to do the yoga postures…you just have to do the physical discipline of yoga. So I’ve got tons of videos on this YouTube channel shorter videos, some older workouts, but if you really want the good stuff if you want to see what these workouts look like, you want to take the time devote the time to improving your flexibility in your upper body, reducing that clicking in your shoulders and eliminating it once and for all, you’re going to need to start doing longer workouts. You’ll need to start focus focusing specifically on that flexibility.

So I invite you to take a seven-day free trial to the man flow yoga members area, and this is where we have a video library with videos filtered by flexibility, by focus, so by upper body, by lower body, and again I recommend you taking that 7-day free trial, getting into the video library checking out a workout and if you hate it, you can click cancel and you pay nothing. So if you sign up and you hate it, you don’t like it, just go cancel, and even if you sign up and you hate it and you don’t like it and you get charged, just send me an email and say hey, Dean I don’t really want to do this, and I will give you your money back…no questions asked. So you’ve got nothing to lose – remember if you’re not doing to do anything that I just said, if you don’t want to join the members’ area and you don’t want to subscribe to the YouTube channel, just start working on your shoulder flexibility and start working on strengthening your back.

All right if you want to learn more stuff like this if you thought this information was valuable you want to keep hearing from me subscribe to this YouTube channel. I put up stuff like this on a regular basis. My goal here is to educate to inform and to the buyer so if you want to keep learning stuff, subscribe, and either way, I hope to see you on the next video or the next workout and remember that seven-day free trial is always waiting for you at manflowyoga.com/7-days. I’ll see you guys soon take care


This is a question I get asked a lot: “I hear a lot of clicking, cracking, and popping noises in my shoulders when I work out, but what can I do to fix this?” First, you have to understand what is that clicking before you can fix it.

Why Does My Shoulder Click?

The shoulder clicking and popping noises you hear is tendon rubbing over bone. Tendons are what connects your muscles to bone. When the muscles are tight, the tendon runs over the on, resulting in that popping noise.

Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily. If there is no pain or discomfort, you might not have to worry about it. However, shoulder clicking or popping is an indicator of one or two things. They are:

1) Tightness in your shoulders. This refers not just to the glenohumeral (shoulder) joint itself, but everything that connects to it, including the muscles in your upper arms, your chest, your upper back, and even your neck.
2) Weakness in your back. When you use the muscles in the front of your body too much, and the muscles in the back of your body not enough, this causes an imbalance. When the muscles in your back get weak, the muscles in the front are overworked when they have to complete a task.

Poses And Exercises to Fix Shoulder Clicking

Want to know how to fix shoulder popping and clicking?  We’ll start with a few exercises for flexibility, and then include some simple rowing exercises to develop strength in the back and shoulders.

Exercise 1:  Downward facing dog

This pose is great for opening up your shoulders, allowing them to stretch farther back behind your head. Developing shoulder flexibility allows you to more fluidly move your shoulders through their ROM (range of motion). Focus on pushing into the ground to bring your shoulder closer to your ears.

How to fix shoulder clicking - downward dog

 

Exercise 2: Dolphin

Dolphin is a great pose for building strength and stretching your shoulders and scapula. If your hamstrings are limiting you, then you can bend your knees. Remember to push into the ground and engage your core through this pose.

How to fix shoulder clicking - Dolphin

 

Exercise 3: Strap stretches behind back

Reaching behind you is also critical to healthy strong shoulders. Get a strap and focus on pushing your shoulders forward. Remember to keep elbows internally rotated to protect them.

How to fix shoulder clicking - Forward Fold with Strap

 

Exercise 4: Eagle (or just eagle arms)

Eagle is a great pose for stretching the sides of your shoulders. If you can’t touch your hands together, then grab wherever you can – elbow, forearm, or wrist.

How to fix shoulder clicking - Eagle

 

Exercise 5: Pull-ups (use a monster band or a lat pull-down instead if you can’t do a full pull-up)

Pull-ups or pulling motions are very important for developing strong shoulders, scapulas, and back. If you can’t do a pull-up, you can learn how to do a negative pull up to start off – click here for a video guide.

How to fix shoulder clicking - Pull Ups

 

Exercise 6: Horizontal Rows

Along with the pull-up horizontal rows are core exercises that help you strengthen your back, shoulders, and arms. Focus on keeping a strong core and having slow controlled movement through the range of motion.

How to fix shoulder clicking - Horizontal Rows

Hopefully, now you understand why shoulder clicking happens and how to fix it. Now you have some exercises to help, but the best way to help your flexibility and strength is by training intelligently, with a balanced blend of strength, flexibility, and stability for your whole body.

Looking For A Program?

This is yoga for people who wouldn’t normally enjoy yoga – yoga for people who aren’t flexible, who might not want a spiritual workout while they get a physical workout, and yoga for people who’d rather get straight to the fitness aspects without the extra fluff. Man Flow Yoga offers on-demand structured programs that complement your lifestyle and schedule. Sign up below to try our FREE 7-Day Challenge!


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Additional Resources

You might be interested in relieving neck and shoulder pain, strengthening your glutes, or relieving back pain, so check out these 3 blogs!

About the author, Dean Pohlman, Founder & CEO of Man Flow Yoga, Author of Yoga Fitness for Men, Expert on Yoga Fitness for Men.

Dean Pohlman is an E-RYT 200 certified yoga instructor and the founder of Man Flow Yoga. Dean is widely considered to be an authority on Yoga for Men. He has worked with physical therapists to create yoga programs for back health and spinal recovery. His workouts and programs have been used by professional and collegiate athletes, athletic trainers, and personal trainers; and have been recommended by physical therapists, doctors, chiropractors, and other medical professionals.

Dean is a successfully published author through DK Publishing (Yoga Fitness for Men), selling 35,000 copies worldwide in English, French, and German; in addition to being a co-producer of the Body by Yoga DVD Series, which has sold over 40,000 copies on Amazon since its release in 2016.

Man Flow Yoga has been featured in Muscle & Fitness Magazine, Mens’ Health, The Chicago Sun, New York Magazine, and many more major news media outlets.

Dean And Dog

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9 thoughts on “How to Fix Shoulder Clicking & Popping: Two Solutions”

  1. Amazing , a want to be strong and very flexible and have an amazing functional body , you are awesome amazing ,

    Kind regards

    Willie

  2. Sorry didn’t finish . Am I better using body weight or good old fashioned weights , I’d bench . Deadlift , squat,pull-ups dips etc can you please advise I also do bit of running maybe 6 mile three times week , don’t mind getting older just love the buzz from yoga etc , feeling body bein worked hard , again very inspiring just awesome in every way ,

    Thanks

    Willie

    1. I would listen to your body and let that guide your answer. I don’t know enough about you to give you advice, but I would recommend a blend of everything you mentioned above.

    1. When doesn’t really matter, and how many you should depends on your fitness level.

      You should do as many as you can 2-3x per week, 2-3 sets. Shoot for 2-5 minutes of total tension.

    1. I would alternate the days for rows and pull-ups. One day focus on 3-4 sets of horizontal rows, and at least 2 days later you can do 3-4 sets of pull-ups.

    1. First off I would understand that you need to do the appropriate exercises for at least weeks, and usually 2-3 months, until the issues will go away. I’d also recommend seeing a physical therapist to make sure you can pinpoint what’s specifically going on in the shoulder. Usually though, it’s that lack of shoulder mobility and weakness in the pulling muscles of the upper-back.

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