Your shoulders are very important to climbing. They serve as the axles around which all of your upper-body climbing movements rotate. Hence, strengthening them is imperative to the success of your climbing career. To do so, you need to understand the anatomy of your shoulders and get to know the benefits you will get from the three planes of motion. So let’s dive into it. 

Human Shoulder Anatomy

Your shoulder is this humerus or the upper arm bone connected to your shoulder blade (aka your scapula). There's a bunch of muscles that move your shoulder blades. In fact, there are a total of 17 muscles that are connected to them. When we talk about the rotator cuff, we talk about how 4 muscles keep the ball in the socket. However, the socket also moves around the ball, and they're 17 muscles that connect to the shoulder blade. Some attach to your neck, to your back, to your pelvis, and to your arm.

Keeping Your Shoulders Healthy

To keep your shoulders healthy, you have to get the whole body moving with your shoulders. Important to note, your shoulder range of motion differs when you're sitting and standing while doing different body positions. So to get your shoulders moving correctly, you have to move in three planes of motion. These are the sagittal plane, coronal plane, and transverse plane. These planes involve moving front and back, side-to-side, and rotationally.

In addition, to get a complete and full range of motion of your shoulders, you need to get the whole body involved because, again, there are 17 muscles that connect to the shoulder blade. So all 17 muscles need to be incorporated if you want your shoulders to be truly healthy. 

Remember, motion is lotion. So we need to get it moving. Since the whole body moves as an entire system, the more muscles you can get involved, the better it will be for your shoulders. 

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