6 Ways to Fix Your Shoulder Problem
One of the most common areas of human body that cause us a grief right after lower back is shoulders. It’s actually unbelievable how easily you can injure your shoulders and set it on fire for weeks if not months.
We tend to ignore pain in the shoulder as it usually does not affect our daily routine much…at first. What it looks like a minor injury or just a muscle strain may turn to prolong case of pain.
Reasons of shoulder pain;
“A Mirror workout”
You must have seen or at least heard of folks doing it in every gym around the globe. Mirror workout is especially popular among men. They tend to train only the parts that they can see in a mirror. So they would do their chest and arms skipping their legs day.
Such imbalanced routine lead up to tight muscles in the front especially pecks and all muscles around shoulders. It will lead to round shoulders look, and round back posture. It is because to strong chest muscles are getting shorter whilst untrained (or not enough trained) back muscles, are weak, and too stretched with way too much pressure on them.
Long story short, they will not be able to do their job properly. If your weakened upper back muscles will not be able to support your spine, shoulder blades and shoulders properly whole bone-muscle chain will get compromised. Back muscle chain becomes too weak to do their job properly so the front one will take over their job (or rather some of it).
When upper trapesius and rhomboid can not keep your shoulder blades in the right place tight and stronger chest muscles pull everything forward. It creates a collapsing effect on your chest. Front strong muscles pull shoulder blades out of their position (and they do not do their job any longer) and as a results a lot of forces are focused on the shoulders. Trapesius is responsible for supporting many shoulder movements especially overhead ones. When it is weak it can no longer do its job and too much pressure is placed on shoulder area. It is the first step to shoulder injury.
Working out with shoulder pain or shoulder injury can make things only worse. When training with injured shoulder you cause imbalance in your body. In order to support your sore body part other muscles will have to take over. They will become your main movers and if that continues for some time you may have problem bringing it back to original order.
Round shoulders will cause lower back compensation and the in turn will cause weak upper back and not enough thoracic spine mobility.
“Trapesius problems and too many overhead movements”
As mentioned before trapesius is there to help with a lot of shoulder movements. When too weak or put under too much pressure it will fail performing its main function. There are 3 parts of your trapesius: upper, middle and lower. They all play crucial roles in stabilising your shoulders, assisting their movements and helping with shoulder blade motion.
In a situation when your upper trapessius is repeatedly placed under too much pressure, it becomes tight and can no longer support its lower and middle parts. Tight upper back will lead to protracted scapula, round shoulders, tight chest and more shoulder pain.
It doesn’t affect only people who attend gyms or who exercise. Office and desk workers are experiencing this problem a lot. My husband is a prime example. Have a look. While at your desk, your shoulders and back are round, head is forward, upper trapesius overused and overloaded. You most likely stay in this position for most of the day putting upper and lower trapesius in disadvantaged position. How many of you experienced shoulder pain, upper back pain and even headaches or migraines? You may even experience jaw pain, neck pain, and pain at the base of the scull or burning sensation in the middle of the back. Those are because of tight upper trapesius muscle.
There is a solution though!
If you would like painless and strong shoulders change game plan.
#1 Train rear part of deltoid
In other words, train your shoulders the smart way. For starters, slow down with trainings of the front aspect of your deltoid muscle and focus for a moment on a rear deltoid.
Exercises for this include: Face pull, Rear deltoid raises, Band face pull, Dumbbells reverse fly- bend over and One arm cross cable laterals
#2 Bring thoracic spine mobility back
Thoracic spine rotations in standing, sitting, lying down and in four position.
Exercises: Side lying rotations, Lunges with torso twists, Cat cow position
#3 Strengthen upper back
Exercises: Lateral pulldown, Rowing, Bend over deltoid fly, Landmine rear deltoid fly and Dual cable rear deltoid fly
#4 Stretch chest muscles
Door frame chest stretch
And if your shoulder is really sore, train muscles that support shoulder – see #5
#5 Around shoulder exercises
And these include: The landmine raise, Front squat, Band shoulder external rotations, Single arm kneeling landmine press and Behind the neck press.
#6 Stretch neck muscles
Stop doing exercises that “irritate” the shoulders
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