How to stop feelings of shoulder instability: brain-focused training to rebuild confidence

Tim Stevenson
Sep 5, 2025
3 min read

Tim Stevenson demonstrating shoulder stability exercises on the gymnastic rings.

If you’ve ever struggled with shoulder instability or recurring dislocations, you know how frustrating and worrying it can be. Many people are told to do endless band exercises to strengthen their shoulders, but here’s the truth: bands alone won’t stop your shoulder from feeling unstable.

We know this from personal experience, because I’ve tried it myself. Despite doing all the band work, I kept dislocating my shoulder. And I see the same problem in many of the athletes and clients we work with today.

So what’s missing? A key element often overlooked is the brain.

In this blog, we take a look how you can stop feelings of shoulder instability through brain-focused training.

Why the brain matters for shoulder stability

Your brain is task-focused. When it’s given a meaningful job in the form of a movement task, the brain intiates a self-organisation strategy. This known as dynamic systems theory.

Your system will act in response to a task and/or the environment you're moving in. That means instead of isolating your shoulder with bands, we can actually often get more meaningful results when we're thinking about a return to sport or activity, by giving the brain a task and getting out of the way so the system can find the solution. This strategy moves us away from a reductionist way of thinking and towards an acceptance that the human body is a complex system.

This is the process that is happening in sport and training. You're not thinking about externally rotating your humerus when trying to tackle a player, make a shot, hit a ball or play with your kids.

What we need to develop is dynamic stability and control in real-time, real-life movements.

Why band exercises alone don't fix shoulder instability

Traditional rehab programs often prescribe band work to strengthen the rotator cuff and stabilising muscles. While these exercises are helpful and play an important role especially during the early stages of rehab, they're not enough to:

retrain the brain for dynamic stability
build confidence in your shoulders for more complex movements or
return to the chaos of the sporting field

Exercises You Can Try Today

One of the best ways to retrain your shoulder is through task-driven drills. For example, try an exercise that challenges your coordination, balance, and control under load. This forces your brain to adapt and strengthens your shoulder in a way that carries over to real performance.

With this kind of training, you’ll notice your shoulder starts to feel more stable, secure, and trustworthy. Your attention will shift from whether one muscle is working to whether you can achieve the task outcome, and the only way you can do that is to get the system to do it.

That will be a huge win on the way to overcoming fear of shoulder pain and instability.

In this video, we share a few progressive exercises and a task-focused one you can try on the gymnastic rings to build your confidence in your shoulders.

The Bottom Line

If you want to overcome shoulder instability, it’s time to move beyond bands and start training your brain. By giving your brain meaningful tasks, you’ll unlock lasting shoulder stability, regain your confidence, and get back to doing what you love.