Should You Pinch Your Shoulder Blades Together During Exercises Like The Bench Press?

This is one of those highly controversial subjects. Like with most things related to exercise, the answer is going to be, it depends.

In my experience working mostly with general population clients, pinching the shoulder blades isn't necessary. It can be detrimental to shoulder health and performance over the long term by overworking some muscles while simultaneously undertraining others.

The shoulder blade and shoulder joint are designed to move together. When we interfere with this relationship by consciously squeezing the shoulder blades together, other muscles must take up the slack leading to potential injury and movement dysfunction. Instead of keeping your shoulder blades locked in place, let them move naturally.

Pinching your shoulder blades back on occasion isn't the end of the world, but when performed regularly over time across multiple exercises without training the shoulder blade to move in various directions, the shoulders will likely experience some level of pain or injury eventually.

If you've been pinching your shoulder blades back and you're experiencing some shoulder issues, here are a few exercises I like to have my clients perform to restore proper shoulder blade and shoulder mechanics.

Landmine press
Push-up
Cable press around
Y raise