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Overhead

Your Shoulders Are Unstable Through Range

Coaching by Danny Lehr1:07

The fault

Shoulders that hold a static position but give out when the position has to move.

Why it happens

Strong shoulders and stable shoulders are not the same thing. Stability is about holding a good position while moving through appropriate patterns, which is exactly what the lifts demand.

The fix

Grab a band and run the drill in the video. It rehearses a solid overhead position through movement rather than just at a standstill.

That's one fault. There are sixty-four.

The free fixes assume you already know roughly what you're doing and something specific is going wrong. Find it, fix it, get back to training. That's what they're for and they'll always be here.

The course is the other direction. It goes in order: the positions, how you move through them, the finish and the catch, then the faults that come out of each one. It's what I'd teach you from scratch, filmed properly instead of on a phone in the corner of a gym.

Thirteen modules in 1080p, plus a 16 page written companion you can read at the gym instead of watching.

Taught by Danny Lehr. Competed in Olympic weightlifting 2010 to 2019, won the 2019 Masters World Cup. Coached these lifts under Glenn Pendlay and Dave Spitz.

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Snatch Jerk Overhead

About this fix

Originally published as "Simple Shoulder Stability", part of The Lifting Fix, the free weekly technique series Danny Lehr started filming over a decade ago. He gave every episode away then, and they are still free here. Danny Lehr competed in Olympic weightlifting from 2010 to 2019 and won the 2019 Masters World Cup. More about Danny Lehr.

Transcript

Danny Lehr from The Lifting Fix, we've got Eric here, we're at CrossFit Excel. I've had a lot of questions about overhead stability and how to improve that. This is a great warm-up drill and it kind of works with that overhead. It's good for overhead mobility and just stability and being able to lock out where you want to be.

So, Justin, you get a band. You can always start with the smaller ones that work to larger bands. I think you feel like you need to and just gonna get it like you have the front rack position. That's good to bother.

Give out three presses. There it is, every time those skis get a good, strong position overhead, now the overhead squats in there. And so with that band, that overhead position, if it walks you, we get crazy and do like one more right there, that's off the bottom, and then, oh, and then kind of hold it there, get your seal down, works on it, maybe like a five count in there, move around a little bit. So it's the idea of establishing that good overhead position with the bands rather than like a bar.

Okay, it kind of forces a little more stability. His brother actually caught on this, but nobody really gets to know that. Right? Overhead stability.

Work the band a little. Thanks Eric, thanks Luke. - Bam.

More overhead fixes

Your Overhead Squat Is Weak and Unstable

No solid overhead position under a loaded squat.

The Bar Finishes Out Front, Not Actually Overhead

Leaving the bar in front of the body and calling it locked out.

Your Scaps Are Loose Overhead

No upper back engagement supporting the bar overhead.

Want the rest of this category?

Every overhead fix I've filmed, one a day for five days, in the order I'd work through them with you. Not the order they got uploaded. The order that actually fixes it.

Plus the snatch pull checklist. One page, nine points, floor to hip.

Free, and these videos are free on this site whether you do this or not. This is just me putting them in the right order and sending them to you, so you don't have to guess where to start.

Or just download the checklist, no email needed.