This is one of my favorite stretches before any sort of front rack or overhead positions. In Crossfit, we have many forms of the pushing motion. While this is great for building strength, it can also lead to excessive internal rotation of the shoulder. You can tell if you have excessive internal rotation if you look at your side profile in a mirror and see your shoulders rounding forward, towards your chest. There are many contributing factors to this deviation of posture, but one of the more neglected reasons is the external rotation of the shoulder. Consistently warming up and cooling down with this stretch allows your shoulder to rotate back into proper positioning allowing ease of movement for the front rack and overhead positions.

If the front rack and overhead positions are still giving you problems after consistently doing this stretch for a couple weeks, then your issue may stem from another muscle group. Don’t forget to also mobilize lats, pec minor & major, traps and rhomboids. If you’d like assistance with any of these stretches, feel free to ask one of our coaches!