External Rotation of the Shoulders - It Helps Everything!
In yoga, I learned to externally rotate my shoulders. It has a bunch of benefits for yoga practice, including: giving you more mobility in the shoulders helping open up tight shoulders opening up the chest for more relaxed breathing transferring weight bearing from shoulder girdle (lots of small, overstressed muscles) to the lats (big, giant muscles spread over the back) I got into the habit of thinking about this in yoga, and that got me to thinking about it during my music practice and my aikido practice as well. I can feel the change right away and it's a good one: When I externally rotate my shoulders, it settles the shoulder blades down over my back, and right away my arms do less work, and all my movement comes from the center of the body. I sit up taller and breathe better. How to Externally Rotate Your Shoulders If you learn what this action feels like from a couple of positions, you'll be able to get the right feeling when you're holding or ...