Shoulder injuries are among the most common in fitness, leading Jeff Cavaliere to offer a helping hand. In a YouTube video from May 18, 2026, he revealed five exercises you can perform to fix shoulder blade and upper back pain.
With over 14.2 million YouTube subscribers, Cavaliere stands out thanks to his science-based fitness content. From tailor-made workouts to dieting frameworks to stay lean for a lifetime, he offers fans actionable advice to help them reach their goals.
“It’s the underlying joints that aren’t moving properly that are causing these muscles to lock up. We’re going to fix that, right here on the floor.”
Jeff Cavaliere’s 5 Exercises to Fix Shoulder Discomfort and Upper Back Pain
Find his exercises from the video below:
- Rhomboid Pushup
- Wall Splat
- Can Openers
- 11:15 Stretch
- Bridge and Reach Over
Rhomboid Pushup
He shared that the rhomboid pushup can open up the shoulder blades and offered setup instructions:
“Forearms flat on the floor, and on your knees, and your butt can be up here in the air. What we do is basically allow ourselves to drop straight down to where the shoulder blades pinch together. This should happen pretty naturally for you because gravity is helping you to fall straight down towards the ground.”
Cavaliere explained that lifting the chest is crucial, and said most lifters are surprised by their mobility.
“When you come back out of this, you try to leave your elbows down and push through the floor as you lift your chest as high as you can, that’s protraction. You’ll be surprised to see how much of this mobility you actually have, but you’ve never really experienced because you stopped moving a long time ago.”
Wall Splat
He warned against using narrow hand placement when performing wall splats, as it could irritate the shoulders.
“You want to put your hands up and out wide. You don’t want to have them too narrow because people with shoulder issues might find that to be uncomfortable.
But when you open them up to about 2 o’clock and 10 o’clock on a clock, you’re good to go. Step back with one leg, and what we’re going to do here is allow our hips to sink and our chest to move towards the wall. The knee is actually attempting to touch the wall as we go in.”
Can Openers
Rotation is key for thoracic mobility, which is why can openers earned a spot in Cavaliere’s workout.
“What you do is you put one forearm down here flat and pointing straight ahead towards you, and the other one is going to go on the back of your head.
All I want you to do is open this arm up, rotate up towards the ceiling as high as you can and push down through this elbow and forearm to allow you to get more of that height.”
11:15 Stretch
He described the 11:15 stretch as another game-changing move, emphasizing its stretch on the upper back.
“The 11:15 stretch, what we want to do is lay flat on the floor and put your arms straight out up over your head. Even this can be step one of making you feel a hell of a lot better. What you’ll do is try to drop your chest straight down to the floor.”
“When your arms are up overhead, it’s not touching right now. If you reach further, you’ll feel a little stretch right through this x marks the spot [mid back].”
Bridge and Reach over
For extra rotation, he finished with the bridge and reach over. He shared that this exercise also involves the glutes.
“Not only are you getting rotation and extension, but you’re also getting the glutes to participate too,” he shared.
We all want strength, but longevity takes us further. Cavaliere recently unpacked his top five stretches for improving mobility and increasing quality of life. He believes a mobility routine can complement a resistance training plan.
Shoulder blade discomfort and upper back pain can plague your entire workout routine. However, Cavaliere emphasizes that these are fixable issues with just five exercises.
