3 Reasons Why Your Shoulders Hurt
Read time 4 minutes 25 seconds.
Your shoulders are the most mobile joints in your body!
Your shoulders are the most mobile joints in your body!
They’re ball and socket joints which means they have a wide range of movement. This also means that they need strength and control from their supporting muscles for them to stay happy.
And when they don’t get that?
They become grumpy & injured!
If you have shoulder pain, you know how miserable it is and just how much it affects everything you do; your sleep, training, and even just getting dressed!
And because shoulders are so complex it’s easy to run into issues and get stuck in a never ending cycle:
Rest, rehab, exercise, pain, inflammation… repeat!
It can cost a small fortune constantly trying to fix it!
You’ve probably heard scary terms like
- Thoracic Outlet Syndrome
- Shoulder Impingement,
- Scapular Dyskinesia,
- Frozen Shoulder
- …And many other complicated, scary things
However for a lot of cases, fixing these issues is much simpler that it first appears!
You just need to focus on 3 fundamental issues:
- Your upper back’s stiff/rounded
- Your neck is too tight
- Your shoulders lack movement
And the best part??
That’s all fixable… by YOU!
You’re not destined to have a diagnosis or “dodgy shoulders” forever!!
Let’s go through how each issue affects your shoulders, and what you can do about it!
Reason 1: Your upper back mobility SUCKS!
There! I said it!!
If you can’t lift your shoulders over your head without pain then probably your upper back is too rounded!
Your thoracic spine has a natural curve in it (Kyphosis), it’s part of what makes your spine it’s S shape, but when it starts creeping more & more rounded it starts having an impact on how your shoulder blades move.
Try this:
- Deliberately push your upper back away behind you, bring your shoulders round to the front & round your upper back as much as you possibly can
- Now, when you’re doing your best hunchback of Notre Dame impression, try to lift your arms up over your head
Doesn’t feel very nice, does it?
This is how a rounded upper back can affect your shoulders, and why just stretching your shoulders won’t actually help!
When your shoulders have been pushed forwards & restricted by this rounded position, they can pinch, nip and hurt when you try to move your arms.
You HAVE to start by resetting your thoracic spine first to allow both your shoulder blades to move properly, and allow your arm bone to sit centrally in your shoulder socket. This way they can move freely without restriction… without doing a single shoulder stretch!
So how do we do that? With Zenith Rotations!!
Reason 2: Your neck is overpowering everything
There’s 2 major muscles that attach from your neck directly to your shoulder blades:
- Trapezius
- Levator Scapulae
Our modern lives involve a lot of hunched sitting & tension in the neck, which can cause these two muscles to tighten & “pull” on the shoulder blades. If your scapulae are constantly being pulled in one direction by tight neck muscles, then they’re going to struggle to move freely, which affects how your entire shoulder moves!
PLUS!
All the nerves for your arms pass through your neck & shoulder, so tightness and compression in this area can cause anything from tingles to atrophy to movement restrictions!
If nerves are affected it doesn’t matter how many shoulder exercises you try to do, the signals won’t improve and the weakness will stay!
So stretching & relaxing your neck is key for happy shoulders. My favourite way to do this is by using Yes/No stretches:
Reason 3: You’re not moving your shoulders enough!
Once you’ve started improving your upper back and neck… THEN it’s time to start strengthening your shoulders!
But here’s where most people go wrong:
They only train one direction!
You need to strengthen your shoulder with complete joint movements, not just attack single directions or motions!
One of the most commonly recommended shoulder rehab exercises is banded external rotations, while it can be a great exercise it’s still only 1 of 6 shoulder functions!
Your shoulders should feel strong and confident in ALL motions and directions.
That means training:
- Flexion
- Extension
- Internal rotation
- External rotation
- Abduction
- Adduction
- Elevation
- Depression
- Protraction
- Retraction
But hitting all 11 of these movement directions isn’t as hard as it seems! One simple way to get started is using Rotation, like these Banded Shoulder Dislocates
The Bottom Line
So your upper back is rounding and fusing, your neck is tight and pinched, and you’re not moving your shoulders enough so you’re curled up into a ball because you’re so fed up from having sore shoulders all the time which is making you get shorter and now you can’t stand up straight anymore!
Okay FINE I may have started slightly exaggerating towards the end of that paragraph… but the sentiment is true!!
The longer you run in circles chasing isolated shoulder stretches, the worse it gets.
More pain
More frustration
And that’s exactly why we created Shoulder & Posture Fix to give you a simple step by step way to:
- Improve your upper back mobility
- Loosen off your neck
- Build strong, capable shoulders
Without all the guess work!! You just follow the sessions each day, and you’ll end up with healthy, happy shoulders in no time!!
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