2/3 people will experience significant shoulder pain at some stage. This is a huge stastic. There is a good chance your shoulder pain will interfere with your work, hobbies and exercise routine to a significant degree. Speaking from experience, shoulder pain is a frustrating issue that can mess with your sleep and if you’re like me then a bad night sleep can turn you into an angry zombie the following day.
One of the most common causes of shoulder pain is weakness in a muscle called your serratus anterior. Which is the zig-zag muscle near your arm pit. Its job is 2 fold;
- Help keep your shoulders back and down in a good postural position.
- help with pushing movements.
It is an easy muscle to traumatise. Lifting a weight that is too heavy for you or catching yourself during a fall are common ways to overload your serratus anterior muscle. Once it switches off several things occur;
- Shoulder posture gets worse, giving you a ’rounded’ shoulder posture.
- less stability in your shoulder during pushing movements.
- extra strain through your supraspinatus muscle
Poor shoulder posture puts tension through your shoulder joint and your supraspinatus muscle, which is part of your rotator cuff. It is also the muscle that is most often strained or torn and the cause of your shoulder pain.
Essentially the way to help you get over your shoulder pain is to take pressure off the supraspinatus so that it can heal and strengthen your serratus anterior to improve your shoulder posture. This way your shoulders are much less likely to be traumatised again.
In a seperate blog post I will run through some of my favorite exercises that will help your shoulders to get pain free and stay that way. I will also run through the worst case scenarios for shoulder pain and what your options are if therapy is not working for you.
Thanks for watching/ reading ????
Located in Gladesville, if you live in the area and have shoulder pain, give me a call on 9817 6611 and we can see if we can help.
