Shoulder · 30–60 seconds of slow, controlled slides

Wall slides for the shoulder blade

Your arm cannot travel overhead on its own — the shoulder blade has to rotate with it.

Raising your arm is not one joint moving. The shoulder blade rotates upward across the ribcage as the arm goes up, and when that rotation is late or missing, the shoulder starts borrowing range from places that should not be giving it. A wall slide rehearses the two moving together, with the wall keeping you honest.

How to do it

1. 1

   Stand with your back to a wall, feet a little way out from it

   Lower back stays lightly in contact. Place the backs of your forearms and hands against the wall, elbows bent to roughly ninety degrees.

2. 2

   Slide your arms slowly up the wall

   Keep contact through forearms and hands as far as you comfortably can. Go slowly enough that you can feel the shoulder blades rotating rather than the ribs flaring forward.

3. 3

   Slide back down with the same control

   The return is the half most people rush. Coming down slowly is where the coordination is actually trained.

Make it easier

Reduce the range — slide only as high as you can go while keeping your forearms on the wall and your lower back quiet. A short, clean slide is worth more than a tall one with the ribs thrown forward.

Make it harder

Step your feet further from the wall, or pause for a couple of seconds at the top of each slide before coming down.

The mistake that undoes it

Letting the lower back arch and the ribs push forward to buy extra height. The arms look like they went further; the shoulder blades did not.

If a particular point in the range is sharp or pinching, stop below it and have the shoulder looked at rather than pushing through the same arc.

Also called wall slides, wall angels, scapular wall slide. Drawn from the clinically authored Vinys exercise library — how the method works. General movement guidance, not medical advice.