I was doing pullovers a la Oxygen magazine the other day. A couple reps in, I kept losing my left shoulder. It felt like something slipped over in my shoulder and then I had no strength. I needed arms to bring it back. No harm done. It never hurt and it's fine after.

I was wondering if there's a stabilizer in there or something that I should be working on. Lighter weight? Practice?

Hi Susan

I do the db pullovers on the bench too. I have found that it takes a rep or two to get into just the right position to execute this movement. Often I have to readjust my head off of the bench. (I do mine on the bench with just my shoulders on the top of the bench and head slightly off the bench. Not perpendicular across the bench.) It may take just some practice to find that right place on the bench. I have also found that there are just some days when I can do this movement without something catching in my shoulder and some days when I better just not do all three sets. It is one of my favorite exercises to target many areas as once but I always have to be mindful of what I'm doing with these. Perhaps it is an issue of form for you too and trying it with a next lighter weight to get the right position down may help.

Thanks Lydia,

I did a bunch of reading yesterday about lifting with posture misalignments (like rounded shoulders) Very interesting. I often joke about womens' shoulders but it really does make a difference when you decide to strengthen the upper body.

Susan, you want to be careful with this. My trainer recently had a client dislocate her shoulder doing pullovers. She was doing them just fine and then all of sudden her shoulder just popped out of position. She had to go to the hospital (ambulance and everything), then have her arm in a sling, and then several weeks of recovery before she could do any upper body exercises (in fact, I think there were a couple of weeks where she couldn't do any exercise at all). If it feels like something is moving out of position, you should stop. Maybe try a lighter weight or a different exercise that targets the same muscles.

Thanks Barbara!

I miss seeing you around. We must be lurking in different areas. I have watched and/or helped put dislocated shoulders back ... and I don't wanna! Oh it's gruesome!

I lightened up the weight and it's much better. It's not time to do a full set yet but I'll be careful.

I'm mostly in the maintainer's forum these days. I see your posts fairly often, but I guess I must just lurk and not post in those threads. Probably after I see your post, I realize I don't have anything I could possibly add.

The dislocated shoulder sounded really painful. Definitely not something I ever want to experience.