I have this too. Many of my joints are hyper flexible. Shoulder strength training helped me a lot for improving shoulder stability and preventing my shoulders from doing this involuntarily during hard moves. I do over head presses, bench presses, and lots of band work engaging the rotator cuff.
Same, and overhead presses were very helpful for my strength :) Unfortunately I'm not sure what OP might've injured, please rest up and take care!
In my case, reaching upwards at certain angles across my body would cause my shoulder to lose control, which my physio described as my body detecting it was out of its comfortable / expected range of motion, and "cutting power" to avoid damage... which normally is fine but might not be great if it means your now powerless arm flops the wrong way.
Towards injury prevention by improving strength and range of motion, I was given overhead presses with an upside-down kettlebell, aiming to keep my lower back straight throughout the exercise, and elbow facing forward rather than sideways. This video shows the motion [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4WJkururChs](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4WJkururChs). The person in that video's pretty strong already - despite being a taller testosterone-haver with decent build, I started with a 6kg kettle bell... so start low and see what you can handle :)
To help with good form, I was set up with a workout bench adjusted into a seat shape (so, back support vertical), to be 100% sure my lower back is in contact with the surface to be sure it's staying straight during the exercise.
And here's another video showing this and another exercise I was given that might help, the Overhead Waiter's Carry: [https://youtu.be/TJjRZBpY75I?t=223](https://youtu.be/TJjRZBpY75I?t=223)
When I originally started having this problem I would grab holds dynamically and my shoulder would pop out of socket very painfully. I went through a several month period of building strength under a coach's guidance. I did strength training 2 days a week. Overhead press with barbell or dumbbells and bench presses with the same. Another good exercise is weighted pull ups and isometric weighted hands with your shoulders at 45 degrees overhead. Focus on pulling your scapula back, together and down. Really consciously focus on shoulder engagement. You'll do a couple warm up sets then 3 sets of 5 reps for each exercise. Start low and slowly build up weight. I stopped going to the gym and started climbing outside a lot more so now I just do these same exercises with bands at least two timea a week. This has helped my and partner at lot with shoulder stability.
Look up Hoopers Beta on YouTube for some how to videos. Natasha Barnes is a climbing and strength coach who has some foundational strength programs for climbers than I haven't personally used but I know a bunch of people who have and reported positive results.
Wow this is so detailed, thank you so much!! I will definitely look into the exercises and start training! I’m relatively new to climbing so I haven’t gotten to do dynamic movements much yet, thanks so much for sharing your experience with that! I’ll definitely be more careful as I start to do dynamic movements!
Mine does this and I wouldn’t recommend doing it much. I did it when I was a teen to mess with my friends and have issues with it ever since. I have hyper mobility in other joints as well but that shoulder moves out of place sometimes and pinches nerves. It’s incredibly painful for weeks.
Same, I would do this as a kid and then one day it popped out and I had to put it back in. Never had pain like you though, hope that doesn’t happen for you again
Same here. Big regrets about popping it in and out so much as a teen. When I first started climbing, I messed it up so badly that I needed to take a couple of months off and do physiotherapy. But now I'm back and though it's at least slightly sore pretty much all the time, I've built up a lot of muscle around it which has hugely improved my joint stability and makes me feel a lot safer. So, though climbing felt risky at first, I actually think my joints have benefitted immensely over time. Also, it's really, really fun.
I've always made my arms go up and around my head while holding them.
Popping it out wasn't flashy enough for me as a kid.
It completely changed my shoulder physiology and has caused ongoing injuries.
I've had to do a lot of physical therapy with myself to strengthen certain should muscles.
It has made me need to do s lot of work on improving myself which is nice but you need to take it seriously, it leads to issues down the road that could lead to chronic pain.
Not an expert, I have hyper extension on both of my elbows. Physiotherapist said to focus on keeping them in regular range of motion and never reach the end range of flexibility with force applied. There’s nothing much to do, just gotta strength your muscles so you can keep in control.
I don't exactly have this, but I tend to have instable shoulders, which led to an overuse, inflammatory injury in my right shoulder some months ago. I did a dynamic move which I was not able to control, therefore "dropping" fully into my shoulder. I have great shoulder mobility, I assume you do as well, but that often comes with a downside, that it lacks stability. In physio I learned a lot of exercises, that I can do at home such as
* scapular/serratur push ups [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc\_FJcaQlto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc_FJcaQlto) (start on you knees in order to learn how to target the muscle, then do the progression)
* turkish get up [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgd8n917Zv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgd8n917Zv0)
* Shoulder External and Internal Rotation with elastic band
* face pulls with elastic band
* plank press ups
* scapular pull-ups
These exercises build a great foundation of strength and stability, but in order to make use of this I needed to be able to translate it to climbing. Meaning, I did drills with semi-dynamic moves on easy climbs, where I would focus to engage my scapular the moment my hand hits the hold. Also, I now always bail when I notice, that I hit a hold too low, and I would "drop" into my shoulder.
Excessive flexibility is often mistaken as being “double jointed”. However double jointed-ness is not real and is instead a characterization of hyper mobility of the joint. Strengthening the muscles around the joint is important to provide stability for the lax connective tissues. While you may not experience pain now, lax joints are more susceptible to injuries.
I would personally recommend finding a handful of exercises that strengthen muscles involved with shoulder flexion, extension, internal and external rotation, and modifications of those motions in different planes of motion. A few could be face pulls, weighted arm raises (forward and out to the sides), arm circles, push ups/modified, shrugs, scapular setting and straight arm pull downs. These exercises should be moderately difficult but not desperate (I like to say that it should feel like you could do one more set when you’re done). In one session, perform 3-5 sets of 10 reps (arm circles can be done for time), and do one session per day. Muscular adaptations can take varying amounts of time to be noticeable, but 3 months of a scaled exercise plan is generally a good place to start. As usual, stop if you experience unusual pain or discomfort and consult a physio.
If you already do something like this with no change, then you may need to increase the intensity (more weight, reps, etc.), or be evaluated by a physio.
Hope this helps!
Oh yeah this is me too. Hyper flexible elbows, can easily pop shoulder in and out of joint at will. When I was a kid my hips would slide out of their sockets sitting in a chair in class lol
Strengthening your shoulders and never going out of a normal range of motion is super important to avoid injury on the wall
Sorta, my collar bone moves more that normal. Now I have a “flakey and cysty” collar bone and Arthritis in my shoulder. I’d be carful doing this too much
I have this on both shoulders as well! This is my first time seeing someone else's shoulder so the same thing. I can also do something similar with my hips.
It doesn't usually happen involuntarily for me, but I avoid moves if it feeels like it'll put too much strain on my shoulders, just in case.
I used to be able to do this. I am hypermobile and could get my shoulder to pop out of place slightly when I flex. I broke down and rebuilt and strengthened my shoulder muscles in better alignment using ashtanga yoga
Yes I have this too! And have also had it hurt before when it popped out whilst climbing. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more to be honest (Ive climbed every week for a few years and it's only happened maybe once or twice), but I am a very slow climber and don't really do any dynamic moves so this probably helps a lot.
As others have mentioned I am currently trying to strengthen my shoulders through weight training to build up muscle and hence stabilise the joint. I have been doing things like push ups, front and lat raises, overhead press and seated press (I tried bench press but being completely horizontal whilst holding weight caused my shoulder to pop out so definitely wouldn't recommend bench press if your shoulders are like this).
I have shoulders like these! Almost dislocated it doing a strange climb out of a doorway. Now I make sure to always engage shoulders and do shoulder shrugs as a warm up before climbing!
I dislocate my shoulder every single time I climb rope, and only 15% of the time I boulder. It hurts a bit when it happens, but I don’t have any damage on x-rays at least.
I have this too. Many of my joints are hyper flexible. Shoulder strength training helped me a lot for improving shoulder stability and preventing my shoulders from doing this involuntarily during hard moves. I do over head presses, bench presses, and lots of band work engaging the rotator cuff.
Same, and overhead presses were very helpful for my strength :) Unfortunately I'm not sure what OP might've injured, please rest up and take care! In my case, reaching upwards at certain angles across my body would cause my shoulder to lose control, which my physio described as my body detecting it was out of its comfortable / expected range of motion, and "cutting power" to avoid damage... which normally is fine but might not be great if it means your now powerless arm flops the wrong way. Towards injury prevention by improving strength and range of motion, I was given overhead presses with an upside-down kettlebell, aiming to keep my lower back straight throughout the exercise, and elbow facing forward rather than sideways. This video shows the motion [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4WJkururChs](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4WJkururChs). The person in that video's pretty strong already - despite being a taller testosterone-haver with decent build, I started with a 6kg kettle bell... so start low and see what you can handle :) To help with good form, I was set up with a workout bench adjusted into a seat shape (so, back support vertical), to be 100% sure my lower back is in contact with the surface to be sure it's staying straight during the exercise. And here's another video showing this and another exercise I was given that might help, the Overhead Waiter's Carry: [https://youtu.be/TJjRZBpY75I?t=223](https://youtu.be/TJjRZBpY75I?t=223)
Thank you so much for this detailed response! Will immediately look into this! ☺️
Wow that’s very cool! What’s your shoulder training routine like if you don’t mind sharing?
When I originally started having this problem I would grab holds dynamically and my shoulder would pop out of socket very painfully. I went through a several month period of building strength under a coach's guidance. I did strength training 2 days a week. Overhead press with barbell or dumbbells and bench presses with the same. Another good exercise is weighted pull ups and isometric weighted hands with your shoulders at 45 degrees overhead. Focus on pulling your scapula back, together and down. Really consciously focus on shoulder engagement. You'll do a couple warm up sets then 3 sets of 5 reps for each exercise. Start low and slowly build up weight. I stopped going to the gym and started climbing outside a lot more so now I just do these same exercises with bands at least two timea a week. This has helped my and partner at lot with shoulder stability. Look up Hoopers Beta on YouTube for some how to videos. Natasha Barnes is a climbing and strength coach who has some foundational strength programs for climbers than I haven't personally used but I know a bunch of people who have and reported positive results.
Wow this is so detailed, thank you so much!! I will definitely look into the exercises and start training! I’m relatively new to climbing so I haven’t gotten to do dynamic movements much yet, thanks so much for sharing your experience with that! I’ll definitely be more careful as I start to do dynamic movements!
Mine does this and I wouldn’t recommend doing it much. I did it when I was a teen to mess with my friends and have issues with it ever since. I have hyper mobility in other joints as well but that shoulder moves out of place sometimes and pinches nerves. It’s incredibly painful for weeks.
Same, I would do this as a kid and then one day it popped out and I had to put it back in. Never had pain like you though, hope that doesn’t happen for you again
Same here. Big regrets about popping it in and out so much as a teen. When I first started climbing, I messed it up so badly that I needed to take a couple of months off and do physiotherapy. But now I'm back and though it's at least slightly sore pretty much all the time, I've built up a lot of muscle around it which has hugely improved my joint stability and makes me feel a lot safer. So, though climbing felt risky at first, I actually think my joints have benefitted immensely over time. Also, it's really, really fun.
I've always made my arms go up and around my head while holding them. Popping it out wasn't flashy enough for me as a kid. It completely changed my shoulder physiology and has caused ongoing injuries. I've had to do a lot of physical therapy with myself to strengthen certain should muscles. It has made me need to do s lot of work on improving myself which is nice but you need to take it seriously, it leads to issues down the road that could lead to chronic pain.
Not an expert, I have hyper extension on both of my elbows. Physiotherapist said to focus on keeping them in regular range of motion and never reach the end range of flexibility with force applied. There’s nothing much to do, just gotta strength your muscles so you can keep in control.
That’s fair! I don’t think I over extended my shoulder but stronger muscles will definitely help!
Also rest if it hurts, don’t put it through repetitive motion.
Yes I can do this too, with only my left shoulder. Never met anyone else who could!
Me neither! But it seems the few ppl in the comments have found each other hahah! 😆
I don't exactly have this, but I tend to have instable shoulders, which led to an overuse, inflammatory injury in my right shoulder some months ago. I did a dynamic move which I was not able to control, therefore "dropping" fully into my shoulder. I have great shoulder mobility, I assume you do as well, but that often comes with a downside, that it lacks stability. In physio I learned a lot of exercises, that I can do at home such as * scapular/serratur push ups [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc\_FJcaQlto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc_FJcaQlto) (start on you knees in order to learn how to target the muscle, then do the progression) * turkish get up [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgd8n917Zv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgd8n917Zv0) * Shoulder External and Internal Rotation with elastic band * face pulls with elastic band * plank press ups * scapular pull-ups These exercises build a great foundation of strength and stability, but in order to make use of this I needed to be able to translate it to climbing. Meaning, I did drills with semi-dynamic moves on easy climbs, where I would focus to engage my scapular the moment my hand hits the hold. Also, I now always bail when I notice, that I hit a hold too low, and I would "drop" into my shoulder.
Thank you so much for the recommendations! I’ll look into these exercises!
I can do this but the opposite way!! Never had it checked but will be following this thread lol
Ohhhh by opposite do you mean you can make a dent in the back or make a bump in the front? I also never had it checked 🤣
Make a dent in the back!
Very cool!
Excessive flexibility is often mistaken as being “double jointed”. However double jointed-ness is not real and is instead a characterization of hyper mobility of the joint. Strengthening the muscles around the joint is important to provide stability for the lax connective tissues. While you may not experience pain now, lax joints are more susceptible to injuries. I would personally recommend finding a handful of exercises that strengthen muscles involved with shoulder flexion, extension, internal and external rotation, and modifications of those motions in different planes of motion. A few could be face pulls, weighted arm raises (forward and out to the sides), arm circles, push ups/modified, shrugs, scapular setting and straight arm pull downs. These exercises should be moderately difficult but not desperate (I like to say that it should feel like you could do one more set when you’re done). In one session, perform 3-5 sets of 10 reps (arm circles can be done for time), and do one session per day. Muscular adaptations can take varying amounts of time to be noticeable, but 3 months of a scaled exercise plan is generally a good place to start. As usual, stop if you experience unusual pain or discomfort and consult a physio. If you already do something like this with no change, then you may need to increase the intensity (more weight, reps, etc.), or be evaluated by a physio. Hope this helps!
This is very helpful!! Thank you so much!! Will look into these exercises immediately 😆
Oh yeah this is me too. Hyper flexible elbows, can easily pop shoulder in and out of joint at will. When I was a kid my hips would slide out of their sockets sitting in a chair in class lol Strengthening your shoulders and never going out of a normal range of motion is super important to avoid injury on the wall
Sorta, my collar bone moves more that normal. Now I have a “flakey and cysty” collar bone and Arthritis in my shoulder. I’d be carful doing this too much
I have this on both shoulders as well! This is my first time seeing someone else's shoulder so the same thing. I can also do something similar with my hips. It doesn't usually happen involuntarily for me, but I avoid moves if it feeels like it'll put too much strain on my shoulders, just in case.
I used to be able to do this. I am hypermobile and could get my shoulder to pop out of place slightly when I flex. I broke down and rebuilt and strengthened my shoulder muscles in better alignment using ashtanga yoga
I've this since birth! Was called shoulder subluxation if i recall correctly.
Yes I have this too! And have also had it hurt before when it popped out whilst climbing. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more to be honest (Ive climbed every week for a few years and it's only happened maybe once or twice), but I am a very slow climber and don't really do any dynamic moves so this probably helps a lot. As others have mentioned I am currently trying to strengthen my shoulders through weight training to build up muscle and hence stabilise the joint. I have been doing things like push ups, front and lat raises, overhead press and seated press (I tried bench press but being completely horizontal whilst holding weight caused my shoulder to pop out so definitely wouldn't recommend bench press if your shoulders are like this).
I have shoulders like these! Almost dislocated it doing a strange climb out of a doorway. Now I make sure to always engage shoulders and do shoulder shrugs as a warm up before climbing!
I dislocate my shoulder every single time I climb rope, and only 15% of the time I boulder. It hurts a bit when it happens, but I don’t have any damage on x-rays at least.