ExRx.net

Hi

Alot of people who train in my gym use a restricted range fo motion when training - in comparison to the way the exercises are performed on this site. Mostly on shoulder exercises.

For example, the Dumbbell Shoulder press. Most people I see doing this (and also the way I have been told) will lower the dumbbells until their upper arms are parallel to the floor, 90 degrees. I see other exercises being performed like this, mostly seated barbell shoulder press and dumbbell bench press.

I have asked why they do this and they say it is to reduce the chance of injury....?

I think it 'feels' right in the dumbell bench press as when I bring the dumbells all the way down, I don't think it feels too great. It doesn't feel wrong but i would hesitate to go heavy e.g pyramid down to 4 reps

The reason I do the exercises like this is because I have seen some very big/strong guys training like that and when you start out training, these are generally the guys you listen to. However, I now wonder if there is any facts to back up their theory?

Anyone got any views?

My concern is really that I have been training a couple of years now, starting to get quite heavy (in comparison to my bodyweight) and I now realise just how easy it would be to get seriously injured. I always get paranoid about my shoulders especially and also my back (when squating). Don't really worry about my knees for some reason. So I am quite keen to learn more about the injury side of things...

Thanks

KP

My feelings; go full range of motion, reducing weight if necesary.You will tank yourself in the long run. I also advocate using ROM's in ALL directions when concerning the shoulder girdle. Do both push and pul in the same planes of motion. A lot of people get in trouble by benching to the exclusion of eerything else.Just my .02
Tim

Many weight trainers have shoulder impingements and/or rotator cuff injuries. Bringing the arms below parallel aggravates these problems. Most of this is due to excessive bench pressing, as Tim noted. Olympic trainers avoid benching in their training programs and have relatively few shoulder injuries, despite the full range overhead lifting that they do in the clean and jerk.

i injured 2 of the RC muscles last summer while on the river, to rehab i had to do lots of rotational exrx's but couldnt go full range. i eventually did go ful range in order to fully rehab the muscles.
if someone has an injury i can understand not going full at first and until the muscles start to strengthen but to get back to 100% or as close to wouldnt full range help?