If you want to improve shoulder posture, you need to start feeling the muscles between your shoulder blades. One of the basic skills that I work with all clients on is effective control over the shoulder. Think of this as good posture for your shoulder. When the joint has the right posture - i.e. it’s being held in an optimal position - it’s stronger, more resilient (i.e. less prone to injury), and frankly most people agree looks better aesthetically. Slouched, rounded shoulder’s don’t exactly demonstrate a confident, healthy body language.

The first step to gaining solid control over the shoulder is usually improving control of the muscles between your shoulder blades (although this is not the only important muscle group at play).

Here’s the big take-home point: you should be able to feel fatigue develop - a burning feeling - in these muscles when doing exercises like back flys, powel raises and just about any rowing variation. If you don’t, something is amiss, and it’s time to start working to get these muscles more involved. That is what will give your shoulders better posture, and improve your performance results.

These are the drills that I typically like to begin with and that I’ve found to be most effective over time. You’re going to finally be able to feel these muscles working. Clients will say “I’ve never felt that before” or “I didn’t know I had muscles there”. This is the first step toward incorporating those muscles more effectively into complex movements like the bench press, push-ups, chin-ups, dips, biceps curls, throwing activities, and many more.