3 Amazing Shoulder Warm-up Drills with Bands

In a recent article, I showed a fast 3 minute band warm-up for the shoulders.  Because of the popularity of that last video, I filmed 3 more band exercises to help you get your shoulders right before any upper body training session.  You can quickly and easily add these 3 new movements into that warm-up routine.

What you’ll find is these types of movements don’t have to be reserved for just an upper body workout.  When you squat, you have to have great control of the barbell, right?  Well, this requires a compromising position for your shoulders, especially if you have poor posture or your last training session was a monster bench day; which would have left you sore as hell across your chest and shoulders.  Make it a priority to warm-up your upper body for your lower body training sessions and your body will thank you and you’ll feel much stronger.

Extension into Flexion

This move is money.  Really focus on pulling the arms fully into extension.  This will mean the band will stretch across your hips, adding more tension at the end-range.  When driving into flexion overhead, you might find your arms form a “Y” and are not straight up, especially if your shoulders and upper back don’t have the best mobility.  You can make a perfect superset with this movement and thoracic extension on the foam, and quadruped extension and rotation.

Snow Angels

I love how dynamic this movement is and how it really activates the upper back.  Focus on a tall, upright torso and keep your ribs locked down and in neutral.  The head will have a tendency to float around and you can lock it in place, just by pressing your tongue on the roof of your mouth.  You’ve probably seen this type of stabilization technique with athletes who wear mouthguards.  Using your tongue to stabilize your head and neck is the same thing.  Pull the band back behind you as far as you can to increase the dynamic stretch on the chest and shoulders.

Dynamic Chest Stretch

You’ll turn away from the cage and grab a band in each hand.  This movement is more of a dynamic stretch, as opposed to, an activation exercise, but it feels amazing when supersetted with the previous movements.  Try to move your arms in big looping circles and continue breathing throughout the set.

I hope you like the new band exercises.  Please add them into the previous 3 minute band warm-up and let me know what you think int he comments below.