Shoulder problems are common because our shoulder joints use muscles, tendons, and ligaments working together. If you’re working some of these muscles more than others (or ignoring one of them all together), you can start to lose range of motion in your shoulders or experience shoulder pain.

You can get ahead of shoulder problems, prevent pain, and even help reverse shoulder damage with these two easy shoulder mobility exercises:

Exercise 1: Banded Shoulder Pass-Throughs

This exercise can help increase mobility in your shoulder. It helps engage all of the muscles your shoulder joint uses throughout its range of motion.

Use a light to medium resistance band for this exercise. Pull the band apart and squeeze your shoulder blades together, bringing your arms up, over your head and around to your back.

If your shoulders are too stiff, only bring the band up to above your head, not all the way around.

Exercise 2: Shoulder Depressions

Use your legs to support yourself as you grip a pullup bar and pull your shoulder blades down.

Try 10 reps with both arms.

For an advanced variation, try with one arm at a time for 5 reps on each side.