Frequently used kitchen items such as coffee mugs, glass ware, and plates can be found in the cupboards over the countertop in the kitchen. Reaching up to get a mug for drinking coffee, a plate for eating breakfast and dinner, or obtaining a glass for your favorite beverage is an everyday task for most of us. Our kids might ask us to go outside to throw a baseball or Frisbee with them. The simple act of putting your arm outside the car window to feel the breeze while diving down Soscol going 40 miles per hour. Do any of these actions seem like they shouldn’t hurt? For most of us, the answer is yes. However, for those of us dealing with shoulder pain, performing these simple actions can be a daunting and strenuous task.
The shoulder joint is comprised of the humerus, clavicle and scapular bones. These bones have unique attachment points comprised of muscular, tendinous, and ligamentous tissues to each other. Ligaments are bone-to-bone attachments. Tendons attach muscles to the bones. Skeletal muscle move bones closer or further away from each other. The ends of the each of these bones have a smooth, pearl-like surface made of cartilage articulating each bone. This smooth gliding cartilage is meant to prevent bone-to-bone contact and impingement of tissues in between the bones. Additionally, each bone has small fluid filled sacks called bursas that serve as shock absorbers in joints to dampen percussive forces within the joints.
It’s important to understand how the optimal or suboptimal integrity of these structures can affect the functionality of the shoulder joint in our everyday lives. If the cartilage surrounding the joints decrease, then the likelihood of developing arthritis increases. As tendons, ligaments and muscles are damaged from injuries, strength in the shoulder joint falters. Bursas that get inflamed cause pain, which is a distraction to the productivity during our day. These mechanisms of injury occur from events throughout our lives. Perhaps a previous sports injury from a recreational event, a traumatic activity such as a car crash, or an overused injury from the demands of the actions of a job. The result of the afflictions to the affected area is pain. This pain and unproductivity can negatively affect our physical, psychological, and emotional wellbeing. Fortunately, adhering to exercise and understand a few pieces of anatomy, these painful symptoms of the shoulder are curable.
Shoulder issues are a common malady among our personal training clients in Napa. One of the first tactics we teach our clients is to “park the shoulders.” This means to retract the shoulder blades backwards and downward against the ribs using the muscle responsible for scapular retraction and scapular depression. The action of pulling the shoulder blades backwards toward each other is scapular retraction. Pulling the shoulder blades downward, performing the opposite action of shrugging, is scapular depression.
If we think about what causes poor posture, it will make sense why brining the shoulder blades back will revert harmful conditions to our body. Some of us work in office settings, sit in chairs all day, or view files placed on a desk while sitting. Let’s not forget how much we place our cell phones down on surfaces and peer downwards at them. We enter into a “hunch back” like or kyphotic posture where the back rounds at the shoulder blades and the head falls forward. Prolonged exposure to this posture tightens the anterior muscles of the neck, shoulder, and chest. This leads to a rounded back and neck. We promote clients to “park their shoulders” to productively revert this kyphotic position. Not only will this posture issue cause problem in the neck and back, but poor posture paired with underutilized shoulder blades muscles will lead to the joint issues described earlier.
Remembering to move the shoulder blades down and back to stimulate the surrounding musculature is critically important toward injury prevention of shoulders and living productively. In a society which now thrives on productivity coming from desk workers and looking at cell phones, shoulder, upper back, and neck injuries are becoming more apparent. We need to be productive and pain free to support our livelihood. Remember to put those shoulders “in park” for a pain free, strong, and productive day.
Sean McCawley, the founder and owner of Napa Tenacious Fitness in Napa, CA, welcomes questions and comments. Reach him at 707-287-2727, napatenacious@gmail.com or visit the website napatenaciousfitness.com.
