Are You Really Antagonist Training?

Why your “antagonist” training should consist of more than just push-ups and overhead presses. 

     Everyone from the beginner to the most advanced climber can benefit from “antagonist training.” As a climber we do a copious amount of pulling, so it makes sense that our antagonist training should consist of a lot of pushing..right? This article digs a little deeper into antagonist training and how we can strategically choose exercises to target all the muscles we don’t normally use while we are on the wall avoiding overuse injuries, and making our antagonist training way more efficient. 

Antagonist Training
    The concept of antagonist training comes from the fact that in every movement, there is a muscle that creates the movement (agonist) and a muscle that opposes the movement (antagonist). Most people understand that they need to train all the opposite muscles that they don’t normally use when they climb. Simply put, we pull a lot, so we need to push a lot. While this is true, this statement does not take into consideration that muscles have more than just one action. More than just one action? Yes, this is because movement can occur in 3 planes of motion: sagittal, frontal, and transverse. 

I see so many climbers whose antagonist training program only consists of push-ups and overhead presses. While theses are both great exercises, we must be aware that these muscles do much more than just raise the arms overhead and get our torso off the ground during a pushup.   

I get it now..the muscles in the front of the body are antagonist to the muscles in the back of the body, and they do more than just “push.”

    Yes, our muscles in the front like the pectoralis major (pecs, a prime mover in the pushup exercise) and anterior deltoid (a prime mover for the overhead press) are antagonists to our big puller in the back, the latissimus dorsi (lats, a prime mover for pulling up to a lock off position), but only with certain movements. For example, both the pecs and anterior deltoid act in the sagittal plane to flex the shoulder while the lats extend the shoulder. 

Photo of a flexed shoulder position (similar to the ending position of an overhead press)

Photo of an extended shoulder position (bottom position of a pushup)

Shoulder went from extension to flexion in order to complete the pushup relying on muscles like the pec major and anterior deltoid

Now if we look at the frontal plane. The anterior deltoid acts to abduct the arm while the lats and pecs act to adduct the arm

Moving from an abducted position to a MORE abducted position

Here’s the kicker!
However, if we look at the transverse plane of motion (responsible for rotation at the shoulder), ALL 3 of these muscles act to internally rotate the shoulder. 

Photo of an internally rotated shoulder position

This is an extremely important thing to consider when we plan what exercises we do for training. For example, if we only did push-ups and overhead presses, we might have balanced muscles when it comes to the muscle actions of shoulder flexion/extension (sagittal plane) and abduction/adduction (frontal plane), but really unbalanced muscles when it comes to shoulder external and internal rotation (transverse plane). 

Photo of an externally rotated shoulder position

Take home message
Climbers tend to have very tight and overactive shoulder internal rotators while their shoulder external rotators are weak. Over time this causes our shoulders to be pulled forward decreasing our range of motion and making us prone to injury. This is why our antagonist training should not only focus on muscles that “push,” but also on muscles that rotate. We must be mindful of pushing exercises because many of these exercises also strengthen and cause internal rotation. Any antagonist exercise we choose to do should have a pushing component AND an external rotation component. 

Examples of Antagonist Training Exercises

Push-ups with an External Rotation Bias

Overhead Press with External Rotation

Arnold Press (incorporates external rotation across gravity)

This exercise is a multi-planar movement that activates your external rotators and shoulder abductors. Be sure to check out the blog post at climbpainfree.com to learn if you are really antagonist training efficiently!

Get the most bang for your buck and save yourself some time on the off-the-wall/antagonist/injury prevention exercises by keeping these things in mind. That way, we can spend more time doing the thing we all love…climbing. 

Photos:

1. https://30minutesofeverything.com/planes-of-motion/