Natalie reacting on someones thight shoulder question on
https://forum.nataliereckert.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=161
I recommend fold your chin to your chest in the endurance holds, it should feel like your are almost touching your chin with your chest. These would be handstand holds with your back to the wall or facing the wall wichever way works best.
Focus on elevating the shoulders as much as possible and think of pushing the arms slightly back to open more (this is not the same as leaning to the front with your chest! which you should not do) It is a shoulder elevation plus pushing the arms behind you. Try it standing first.
Try to pull the shoulder blades together on your back, this will create a slight outward rotation in the arms. The outward rotation helps you to open the shoulders further.
When you hold the handstand, make sure your elbows stay straight. Pull the floor apart with your hands, this can help create stability together with the shoulder push.
If none of that works well, I recommend doing handstands in a diagonal line towards the wall, helping your to work into the shoulder opening:
Shoulder openers
Another reaction on the same topic
Opening the shoulders in the handstand is a two way process.
One is developing a good shoulder opening standing up and arms raised above the head. It is usually the first analiytical tool to determine someones shoulder mobility.
When mobility is restricted, the first landmark is to work on what you describe: the scapular mobility, the active strength to pull the shoulderblades down your back and slightly in towards the spine (and also to work on the passive flexibility in the muscles accross the front body).
The second step is to achieve a good shoulder opening in a handstand.
In the handstand itself you need to elevate the shoulders (push them up to your ears).
Pushing the shoulders up (you can also think of it as pushing the palms of your hands into the floor and slightly backwards) is the best contribution to your shoulder opening you can do in the actual handstand.
If your shoulders are super tight, you can fold your chin onto your chest and that will help too.
All non-handstand exercises that are aimed at opening the shoulders by pulling the shoulder blades down and back are aimed at preparing you to have the best starting position possible for your handstand.
So in an ideal world as soon as you raise the arms above your head to do the kick up your shoulders would be fully open, with the shoulder blades pulled down, and as your hands touch the ground you then elevate your shoulders to achieve both stability and length in the shoulderline.
As you have noticed well, shoulder opening and the ribs are not best friends One wants to make the other compensate for it's shortcomings....Raising the arms above the head will make your ribs want to stick out - Pushing your ribs back in will close your shoulders. If that is the case, work more on shoulder flexibility, especially along the sides of the shoulders and the rotator cuff muscles. With good upper body mobility your shoulders can be fully open, while the ribs stay relatively flat.
Shoulder opening exercises
Warm up by rotating the shoulders/arms
Curving the upper back rounding the arms around an imaginary ball, stretching out diagonally to the back and pressing the chest to the front, back and force
Stand against a wall with the thoracal spine leaning into the wall (feet that distance away that you can manage the touching back). Pulling the arms up in the air, elevating the shoulders (thumbs facing the wall) and back to the wall as mush as possible. Retracting the shoulderblades to turn out the armpits slightly laterally. Aiming for touching the stretched arms to the wall and getting closer and closer with the feet. Never accepting the back bending in a banana.
Butcher's blok
Arms against wall, curve thoracal spine while putting weight in shoulders pressing down, armpits lowering towards the ground, chin on chest
With slightly bend knees chest to wall handstand, control of ribs pulled in, then push the floor away to lengthen up out of the shoulders while at the same time using the body weight (slightly diagonal with the upper body) to open up the shoulder line more. 20 sec hold
Next step getting closer to the wall, same lenghtening up by pushing the shoulders up, now with the legs straighter against the wall, chin pulled to the chest, again using body weight to getting more opening in the shoulders, 20 sec hold
Arches
Lay on your back with a towel under your scapula (sidewise), or higher: with two tennisballs taped together, put your arms over your head to make an arch, but don't arch to much out of your lumbar spine, 3 min
Sit on the floor, legs stretched out, make a saggital wave over your legs, 10 x
Do side stretches by standing sidewise to a wall, one arm above the head gripping a door- or windowframe, bend the side, 1 min
Do a bridge while laying over a chair, also try to come up in a bridge and go back to lay over the chair again, 10 x
Do the same bridge laying over the chair while your feet are rised up by standing on a couch, 10 x