How to Resolve Shoulder Pain with Kipping Pull-ups

If you’re a CrossFitter, you’ve likely heard about shoulder pain with kipping pull-ups. The shoulder is the most common joint that gets injured in CrossFitters. Kipping pull-ups are one of many movements that tax the shoulder in CrossFit. At our physical therapy clinic in Oconomowoc, this is an injury we’ve seen many times.

Resolving your discomfort starts with knowing the cause of your discomfort. There’s three main causes of discomfort of shoulder pain from kipping pull-ups. We’ll explore why each of these occur and what the first step is to fixing it.

1. Technique errors
2. Strength limitations
3. Mobility restrictions

Shoulder Pain with Kipping Pull-ups due to Technique Errors

Have you ever watched someone do pull-ups and it looked like they were falling at the bottom of the pull-up? This is more common with butterfly pull-ups. But, it’s still a common cause of shoulder pain with kipping pull-ups.

When you perform a kipping pull-up, the shoulder should stay engaged the entire time. This means it pulls you upwards and controls your descent. If the descent isn’t controlled, the shoulder receives a large impact at the bottom of each pull-up. Over time, this impact adds up and pain occurs.

The simplest way to resolve this is to fix your technique. Instead of surrendering to gravity, use your muscles instead. Yet, this is often easier said than done. I’ve found most people don’t use their muscles because they aren’t strong enough. And, this is the perfect lead into the next point.

Shoulder Pain with Kipping Pull-ups due to Strength Limitations

To control kipping pull-ups, you need a certain baseline of strength. When assessing someone’s baseline of strength, at the least, I look for the following –

1. Ability to complete one strict pull-up from a dead hang to chin over the bar
2. Rotator cuff strength to be ~10% of overhead pressing strength
3. Ability to hold a scap pull-up for at least 10”

That is the smallest level of strength I recommend to start to learn kipping pull-ups. If you want to do high volume (>50) kipping pull-ups in a WOD, I recommend the following level of shoulder strength –

1. 5 unbroken strict pull-ups
2. Rotator cuff strength ~20% of overhead pressing strength
3. Ability to hold a scap pull-up for at least 30”

Why am I so picky about strength? Because you have to earn the right to do the movement. If your coordination is good and you can complete the movement, it doesn’t mean you should do the movement. When people do movements using their body without good mechanics, they get injured.

A Mini Relevant Aside

I have worked with many individuals who have had shoulder pain from kipping pull-ups. Each time, we resolve their discomfort. Then, I detail the strength they need before they start working on kipping pull-ups.

Yet, a lot of them don’t continue to work on their strength once their pain goes away. And I get that – it doesn’t hurt, so why continue to put in the work? But, if you don’t fix the original reason why you had pain, the pain will return. And, no surprise to me, they often end up back in our Oconomowoc office about a year later.

Resolving Strength Limitations

Here’s some great exercises to help you resolve strength limitations.

Strict Pull-Ups

Yep, you guessed it! The easiest way to get better at doing pull-ups is to…do pull-ups! We’re looking for high quality reps here though. Some pointers –

• Avoid arching your back
• Keep your stomach squeezed
• Start the pull with your shoulders

Don’t have your first pull-up? We’ve got a whole blog post reviewing how to get one here. All the exercises in that blog post work on building strength for kipping pull-ups as well!

Rotator Cuff Strength

There’s a million and one ways to target the rotator cuff. I’m a fan of sticking to the basics and not over-complicating things. Because of that, these are my two favorite exercises:

Shoulder Pain with Kipping Pull-ups due to Mobility Restrictions

This is the least common cause of shoulder pain with kipping pull-ups that we see. The shoulder joint needs a lot of mobility in order to perform a kipping pull-up. Because the movement occurs at a fast speed, the shoulder has to move in and out of that motion and with ease.

The most common mobility restrictions are overhead motion and rotational motion. If you want medical terms, it’s shoulder flexion and shoulder external rotation. The following two stretches are great at resolving these restrictions.