Easy Drill to Improve Your Front Rack

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The front rack position can be very challenging for people to get in to comfortably. Maybe they have tight wrists, maybe the shoulders are tight, maybe they just haven't spent much time in this position.

Regardless, it's a position many people do mobility and stretching work in order to achieve.

One of the components I think is overlooked is the sequencing or coordination of relaxing certain muscles while driving with others to get the shoulder joint, scapula, and thoracic spine to move the way you want to in order to get into a good front rack position.

Frequently people will focus on using aggressive stretching to try and force themselves into this position, like the prayer stretch (which I use here, here, and here). I use this stretch frequently, but there's something important to say about the technique I show in this video as it's more about learning how to relax during this movement and then coupling that with active creation of the position (instead of trying to stretch things to a longer length, if that's even really possible). Not everything responds to blunt force.

Lots of people have wrist complaints in a front rack, especially if they are new to it. Usually the wrist doesn't need to be stretched more than it already is during a front rack. Instead, the shoulders, scapulae, and thoracic spine need to do a better job so the wrist doesn't end up carrying all the weight.

Thanks for reading!

-Ryan