Exercises To Try Out: Wall Slides

Yep, the name isn’t very sexy and you aren’t going to deadllift a Mack truck by doing these, but the wall slide is a great exercise and should be used in your program often. Many of us sit in front of a computer all day hunched over like Quasimoto, and as a result have the upper back mobility of a 2×4.

This exercise however, can be a great way to combat some of that stiffness and help regain that lost mobility. As we continually sit in that hunched posture at work or at home, over time the muscles of the chest get tight and pull our shoulders forward even more. Conversely, the muscles of the upper back get weak and lengthened and we are unable to hold that good posture as a result.

This phenomenon is referred to as upper crossed syndrome and can eventually be the culprit of a lot of other problems that begin at the upper back and shoulders, and even feed down into the elbow and wrist. When an injury presents itself in a joint, any clinician worth their salt will not look at just the affected joint/area, but will evaluate both up and down the kinetic chain, and a lot of times a few mobility exercises like this one programmed correctly can help to avoid injury via improved mobility.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dGvh9axcHE

(Man, the still shot of that makes me look like I’m rocking it to the YMCA, eat your heart out Village People!)

While that may not always be the case, it’s probably more common than you believe. This is an exercise that like I mentioned isn’t sexy, but does give you a lot of bang for your buck in that respect. Now there is a couple way’s I typically program this into people’s workouts, and the first is as a warm-up exercise, and each time you start a workout without warming up, a cute cuddly bunny dies (seriously though… you should be warming up). Either way, you can start with about 2 sets of 12 as a part of your warm up to loosen up your upper back, before you start lifting heavy things.

This will also promote blood flow to the upper back and prime those tissues for exercise. I’ll also commonly program this as an assistance exercise and pair it with something like a push-up or bench press variation. When I program this as an assistance exercise, I will usually do sets of 6-8 and match the number of working sets of the main exercise. This movement helps offset the effects of heavy pressing by teaching you how to properly position your scapula on the rib cage, and can help you gain that upper back tightness that leads to a bigger bench press (and what bro doesn’t want that).

A couple of things to remember when performing this exercise is that you should not arch that low back, but exhale all the way so your ribs come down, and hold that position throughout the movement. Then start again by taking a deep breath and exhaling until your ribs come down and repeat. It’s important to not get into that arch backed position and keep a neutral spine alignment the entire time.

However it best fits into your workout give it a try and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.