Yup, its that time of the year again, no kip November to build some solid foundational upper body strength.  For the month of November, all pull ups, dips and handstand pushups will be done strict.  Toes to bar are fine to kip.  While yes, our goal is to make you strong, that is not my primary goal.  The primary goal is to prevent shoulder injuries by building up strength in the structures that support the joint.  Before we move fast, we need to have the strength and form to control ourselves.  If you’ve been around here for any bit of time, you’ll know that we are really big on the basics.  General physical fitness comes from mastering the basic tasks that carryover to the most other tasks.  We do a lot of squatting because it is the foundation for all most all weight lifting movements as well as strengthens the lower body for running, jumping etc.  The pull up and the dip are the deadlift and the squat of the upper body.  An excellent measure of someones strength is the max amount of strict pull ups.  Working on these will help just about every upper body movement out there.  Strengthening in the posterior shoulder, and upper back is key to helping prevent injuries in some of the more dynamic movements.

Mobility without stability is bad news.  Strength without mobility is also not desireable.  We must have both.  More on this in another blog.  Suffice to say, we need to strengthen the joint across the entire ROM.  Here is a video of a pull up done in hollow body position.