Improving Hip and Shoulder Internal Rotation WITHOUT STRETCHING!

Having shoulder and hip internal rotation is kind of a big deal.

What if you could get it as quickly as possible without a single stretch?

That’s exactly what we did in this case. I work with someone who is unfamiliar with my techniques, and in 3 moves (1 of them a failure), we were able to increase shoulder and hip internal rotation.

Watch the video below to learn what we did.

Case overview

The “patient” is my nephew, Brad. He’s a football player and wrestler who is just a stiff bro. No pain.

Objective findings

Brad’s main initial findings were the following:

Intervention selection

Given the findings above, are major keys to focus on were making the infrasternal angle dynamic and restoring internal rotation. Brad appears to be a classic narrow infrasternal angle.

Lewit tilt

I chose this move because the 90 degree angle at the hips biases internal rotation. The supine position promotes lateral ribcage expansion, which is great for narrow infrasternal angles.

If you want a super in-depth reasoning for this move, check out this post.

After performing this move, B’s test results were as follows (improvements are bolded):

Quadruped

I initially tried quadruped because I thought the 90-degree angles at the shoulders and hips would help bias internal rotation that B needed, but this move and all iterations were a miserable failure.

Despite my best coaching efforts and modifying like gangbusters, I couldn’t get B to reach without crunching. It was ab city for days, and he was the mayor. I’ve noticed this quite often when teaching quadruped early on in the game.

We got minor changes in motion with this move, but I opted to utilize a different strategy instead.

Wall squat Right reach

I opted to go with a wall squat at a high depth because it was easier to get the tuck portion. We didn’t have gravity pushing the pelvis into an anterior tilt.

Because I wanted to make the infrapubic angle dynamic, I had him squeeze a block between his knees.

I could’ve went with a lower squat, but I didn’t want to increase the challenge too much.

The reason I had him reach with his right arm is because I wanted one hand to monitor the abs getting smaller. Also, when I reach with the right arm, I can bias more internal rotation on the side he needs.

Post-reflection

I thought that my intent with each of the moves was good, but my issue was choosing quadruped when Brad lacked a concept of initiating a reach. I should’ve chosen moves where the primary focus was consistently nailing the tuck and the exhale first. That is why the lewitt was a good choice, although he did well with the wall squat.