A very common exercise you will see at least one person doing while at the gym is the barbell upright row. It is prescribed by a great deal of trainers and is found in many typical work out programs. For those unfamiliar with this exercise, it is performed by grabbing a barbell with over hand grips and moving the bar vertically up your chest to almost the level of your chin. See here
This exercise unfortunately can be very detrimental to your shoulder health. The motion of the barbell upright row places your shoulders in a compromised position and can cause shoulder impingement. When performing an upright row, you create a significant internal rotation/horizontal adduction moment at your shoulder. The combination of both adduction and internal rotation at the shoulder significantly reduces the subacromial space and will cause an impingement (pinch) of the soft tissue structures (rotator cuff, bursae, etc.) beneath the acromion (shoulder impingement).
Along with this exercise creating a possibly harmful motion at the shoulder, you are performing this motion in a forceful manner in order to move the heavy weight. Repetitively performing this exercise over and over again with high levels of force causes chronic pinching of these soft tissue structures. This chronic pinching of these structures can lead to shoulder pathologies such as tendonitis, bursitis, and rotator cuff tears.( A special test used when diagnosing a patient with shoulder impingement is called the Hawkins and Kennedy Test which replicates the exact same motion performed in an upright row!). Unfortunately for a great deal of people they will never get actual pain when performing this exercise so they continue to perform this exercise for years and years causing microtraumas to their rotator cuff. They will not detect the possible damage they are doing to their shoulders until it is too late. There are better options to strengthen the shoulders that are safer and more effective than performing an upright row. However if you still choose to keep the upright row in your routine, I would recommend to widen your grip to decrease the degree of horizontal adduction. You can also use dumbbells in each hand and rotate your thumbs up while lifting to create an external rotation moment at the shoulder which is a safer movement for your shoulders and will not cause impingement.
