Lack of Shoulder Flexibility Correct Positioning

[ERdocDD]

Hello Coach Rip.
I am very grateful for your work. As a 45 year old guy, who has trained with weights in clusters most of my life since age 16, I was starting to think that I was too old to make gains.
Your book and videos have changed my life. I am 7 weeks into the program, and following the app.

As an ER doc, I see first hand, every shift, the correlation between age, lack of strength and mobility, and human pathology- both physical and mental.
I see it personally in my family- My father in-law is 73, runs 5 miles every other day, works out in his gym on the days he is not running, and as a result has no limitations on what he can do, and takes no medications.
This opposed to my step-father, who is a retired physician at 73, who leads a sedentary life, and worries about staying at our home because we have stairs, and pulls his back out when lifting a potato chip.

I could not find if this had been covered before.
My shoulders are not very flexible, nor is my thoracic spine.
I have sort of "rounded shoulders" if you will.

My trouble comes with getting my shoulders back, to get my elbows and hands back, for the low bar squat.
I can get the bar just above the spine of the scapula, but not lower.
This leads me to end up doing the squat a bit more vertical, and above the spine of the scapula.
I also have trouble getting the bar to rest on my anterior deltoids to do a PC. I just can not get my shoulders to rotate enough to get my elbows forward so that the bar can land on my delts.
Could be my conditioning. Could be my posture. Could be the way I was constructed.

Has anyone else come across a similar problem and found a fix?

Thank you for what you do.
Much appreciated.
Darren

[Tom Campitelli]

If you have changes to the shoulder joint and the upper spine that prevent getting in the low bar position, just squat high bar. At 45, this is certainly a possibility. You might be able to get in the correct position, or you may not. I cannot say from here. If you cannot rack a clean properly, you can always snatch. Or, once again at 45, you make another modification. You don't worry about the Olympic lifts. Dat's what I say.