When we’re looking at shoulder issues its important to understand that, just like back issues, we must look at the whole body to see if we can find why the problem has arisen.
I’m not talking about traumatic injury here, but, chronic shoulder pain and dysfunction
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Looking at the major joints in our bodies do you realise that they alternate in their need for stability and mobility? For example, the ankle joint is designed for mobility, so that means the knees are designed for stability etc. Now thats a really important concept to understand, because our wonderful bodies are masters at compensation, so if we lose mobility at one joint, i.e the ankle, the knee will become more mobile to compensate for this!
Can you see the problem, the knee joint is designed for stability and if this joint has too much mobility it leads fairly quickly to dysfunction and pain.
The shoulders are designed for stability, so that means the thoracic spine needs to be mobile, otherwise it will cause dysfunction in the shoulders. Think of someone who is ’round shouldered’, that basically means that they have lost a lot of thoracic mobility causing them to flex in their thoracic (think ‘hump’), the scapula move from their natural position upwards and outwards, creating instability in the joint, leading to pain. Worse still, the shoulder joint can only have its full range of motion if the scapula are stable, oh dear…..losing out thoracic mobility, due to the way our bodies compensate, will now have resulted in loss of range of motion in our shoulders 🙁
Worse still, we can follow the kinetic chain down the body, did the problem start in the lumbar, or the hips, or the knees or was it stiff ankles that has caused your shoulder problems??
This is why Pilates is so fabulous for your body, we work at keeping the mobility and the stability in the right areas to keep your body as compensation free as possible!
Top Tips for Happy Shoulders:
1. Don’t ‘stabilise’ your shoulders by forcing them down your back, this will only jam them up more.
2. Allow the shoulders to melt down the back, visualising the distance between your shoulders and ears getting bigger and bigger.
3. Think about the tips at the bottom of your shoulder blades gently drawing in towards your spine.
4. Be aware of those lower muscles working, they are often very switched off, it make take a while to sense this – do NOT force 🙂
5. When you have a sense of those muscles working, gently pulse them a few times a day, keeping the shoulders relaxed – notice that as you work these muscles your breast bone lifts upwards.
6. Enjoy the feeling of being wide and open across your chest, notice how your head starts to return to a much more natural position, your eye level will be straight ahead……. so smile and greet the world 🙂