Why Is The Bulgarian Ring Row 1 Of Our Favorite Shoulder Pain Exercises?
There are many great shoulder pain exercises out there, and at the top of our list is the Bulgarian Ring Row.
Upper body pulling movements like the Ring Row, Piked Ring Row, and Pull-up, are a great exercises address shoulder pain.
As important as we feel these shoulder pain exercises are to help make our clients lives outside of our training practice are, eventually there comes a time where more variation and specificity is needed.
Most will start their journey to healthy, capable shoulders performing Ring Rows.
Eventually we will move to Piked Ring Rows.
Once competency, strength, and mobility are achieved with Piked Ring Rows, we then turn our attention to the Bulgarian Ring Row.
We have found that the traditional Ring Row and Piked Ring Row do a great job of addressing the larger back muscles, but fall short of properly addressing the weaker external rotators of the shoulders.
The Bulgarian Row is one of the most important shoulder pain exercises because it builds additional stability in the shoulder muscles by forcing you to stabilize pulling movement without the benefit of resting arms along the torso.
It is important to remember while performing the Bulgarian Row to NOT allow the elbows to drift forward of the shoulders.
We want to focus on pulling to approximately 90 degrees of elbow bend, and pausing there.
Frequent coaching cues tend to include “elbows up” and “hands out”.
When it comes to addressing shoulder pain, there are many different approaches we can take, and many different shoulder pain exercises we can implement.
Among some of our favorites include: band pullaparts, passthroughs, bar hangs, external rotations, trap 3 raises, powell raises, ring rows, piked ring rows, hinge rows, and of course bulgarian rings rows.
BULGARIAN RING ROWS
Mobility Screen:
Over Grip Dislocates 15 reps w/ PVC
Seated Shoulder Flexion Hold 30 seconds with 15# barbell
Seated Shoulder Extension Stretch 30 seconds
Practice Ability Screen:
None
Mobility Preferences:
Under Grip Dislocates 15 reps w/ PVC
Supine Floor Handstand Flexion Hold 30 seconds with 11# barbell
Prone Floor Handstand Flexion Hold 30 seconds with PVC + 5#
Strength Preferences:
Tuck Hang x 15 seconds
Bar Hang x 60 seconds
Expectations and Goals:
Life: 5 Ring Rows @ 45 degrees
Fitness: 5 Ground Ring Rows
Performance: 15 Ground Ring Rows
Including Bulgarian Ring Rows part of a long term plan to help address your lacking shoulder strength and mobility has been proven very successful with many of our shoulder pain clients.
It shoulder be noted that the progression from Ring Row to Bulgarian Ring Row depends on many other factors such as current functional range of motion, strength, length of time from surgery, diagnosis, release from therapy, etc. as well as the other types of movements being performed to address the shoulder.
Start slow, always moving through pain free ranges of motion, and focus on tempo (longer pauses/holds with hands pressing against shoulders and slower lowering) and time under tension.
By flaring the elbows out, pulling the hands wide, and maintaining to the best of your ability the cueing we give “butt, gut, shoulders down”, we can change the musculature that we are focusing on (less bigger stronger back muscles and more smaller weaker shoulder muscles) and help to bring up those weaker tiny muscles on the rear of the back and shoulders.