3 shoulder exercises that won't cause aggravation

Anchor: A new year means new goals. If some of your resolutions are to stay in shape, we have tips for you. We were talking about how to exercise and eat healthy. In today's edition of Workout Wednesday, Kylie shows us exercises to work on.

Kylie: Welcome to Workout Wednesday. We're talking about shoulder health.

Jamie: Shoulder health. One of the things that happens out there with all the ice: people are slipping and falling. And when people want to get back to using the shoulder again, what I try to do with my clients is say, let's be kind to our shoulders, and not try to get just strength, because some of these movements tend to be aggravating. What I tend to do is say, okay, how do we get the shoulder active again in a way that is likely to be safe? Obviously, if you have real problems, go get it checked out by a medical professional. But if you feel like it's just not coming back the way you wanted it to, here are three exercises I recommend you do.

Jamie: Number one: think about the position of your shoulder. When we roll our shoulders forward, that upper arm in the socket starts to push forward, and what I want to do is get that back into a more neutral position. So the first thing we'll do is a chest stretch. Get that hand there, and I'll have you shuffle forward, left foot forward. So we're going to go right there. The key here is to relax the shoulder and drive forward with the chest for that nice deep stretch.

Kylie: That feels good.

Jamie: If you work in an office, just do these while you're hanging out talking to people. Number two: once we've got that in the right place, the shoulder blade is back here, hanging around by the side. As this arm comes down, I want you to see the shoulder blade start to really line up. If we're going to have a happy shoulder, we need a happy shoulder blade. So let's do this exercise really quick. I'm going to have you step back there, and we're going to go straight up. When you pull down, I want you to move your hip to the side, point your shoulder blade down, and pull back and down. We want to really activate the shoulder blade muscles back in here, so do this movement in a way where we're being respectful of the shoulder blade. Good.

Jamie: And then I'll have you do one arm. Face me and stand at that side. What you're going to do is bend over 90 degrees right here and then go boom, boom. You're moving the shoulder blade, not just your arm. If you can do those three moves right there, you're on your way. As long as you're pain-free, there's no shame in doing air reps to get the shoulders moving.

Kylie: Awesome, thank you so much.