Dec 18, 2019

 by Karina Wait

Fixing chronic shoulder pain (Part 1)

Shoulders. The part on your body that always seems to be tight or ache in a certain spot, am I right? Well, these little (or big) aches and pains may be our body telling us something. How do you listen then and take control of your shoulder pain?

First, you need to assess your shoulder mobility. More often than not, most of your shoulder pains are caused by the same muscles. However, with consistent stretching, mobility, and strength work- these muscles can be loosened so range of motion can be restored. To test, try these tests below (thanks to Squat University):

Seated Overhead flexion

Place hands at side with palms facing forward. Bring arms to wall with as narrow of a stance as possible (can use PVC pipe) while keeping upper back, low back, and hips on wall.

Get hands to the wall without lumbar spine arching or neck rounding forward? Try facing palms towards the wall and do the same assessment.

Did your upper or lower back come off of the wall? Did you have to bend your elbows as you brought your hands out farther?

Limited by a tight latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major/minor, teres major, and subscapularis.

Seated wall slides

With hands overhead, place arms in an “L” position and slide arms down the wall to at least 45 degrees. Your low back, shoulders, and hands should stay on the wall.

If your low back pops off of the wall, aren’t able to bring your hands to at least 45 degrees, and cannot maintain contact- you may have a tight pectoralis major/minor, poor thoracic mobility, and limited shoulder external rotation.

Internal rotation

Keeping arms in “L” position, bring elbows to 90 degrees on the wall. Rotate hands towards the floor without shoulder blades popping off the wall. To pass, your hands should be parallel to the floor.

If you struggle to bring hands forward or have to compensate by bringing shoulder off of the wall then this range may be limited. 

External rotation

Lying with your back on the floor- have arms in an “L” position with elbows resting on the floor. Try to bring hands as close to the floor by your head as possible. Ideally, your hands should be parallel to your body.

Compensation patterns such as rib cage flaring, shoulders rounding and coming off the floor, or low back coming off the ground could be due to pectoralis minor, teres major, and latissimus dorsi tightness.

After conducting these assessments, how’d you do? Did you pass them all? If so, your overhead mobility is pretty good! However, if you didn’t, hopefully, these self-assessments will shed some light on what could be ailing your progress. The next blog post will talk about how to stretch those pesky muscles and how to strengthen them so your pain can go away. Or if you can’t wait and would like answers now, check out some of the websites below.

Coach Karina

B.S. Kinesiology, CFL-1, USAW-1,

References

1. Horschig, A. (2019, April 1). How To Screen Your Shoulder Pain. Retrieved December 15, 2019, from https://squatuniversity.com/2018/08/04/how-to-screen-your-shoulder-pain/.

2. Maghsoodi, A. (2019, August 2). Bulletproof Your Shoulders. Retrieved December 15, 2019, from https://theprehabguys.com/bulletproof-shoulders/.

3. Tilley, D. (2017, August 10). Understanding The Shoulder Pain Epidemic in CrossFit Athletes (Part 1: Assessments and Specific Mobility). Retrieved December 15, 2019, from Shiftmovementscience.com website: https://shiftmovementscience.com/understanding-the-shoulder-pain-epidemic-in-crossfit-athletes-part-1-assessments-and-specific-mobility/.

4. Gentilcore, T. (2016, September 19). Stop Cranking on Your Shoulders for More Mobility. Retrieved December 15, 2019 from, https://tonygentilcore.com/2016/09/stop-cranking-shoulders-mobility/.