Want to avoid shoulder pain?

Move your arms from your back!

This week I am focusing on the shoulder area in live classes and specifically, what we mean when we talk about moving the arms from the back.

The reason for this is that I have seen a number of people over the last few weeks with overworked/injured ball and socket shoulder joints. Much of our lives are geared to having our arms forward of our bodies (with typing being one such situation). Because of this the tops of our shoulders and our chest muscles can become overworked, while the muscles between the shoulder blades and across the upper back may not work as well as they could.

Over time this may mean that we end up using the shoulder joint (where the arm slots into the shoulder socket) in tasks that it isn’t really supposed to do and going beyond the necessary range of motion at this joint.

For example, the action of taking your arms from chest height to over your head is supposed to be a movement from the shoulder blades, however, when this area isn’t used to working that much, you may end up actioning this movement from the arm into shoulder socket location. Over time this could cause injury and this is why it is really important to make sure that we have the strength and mobility around the shoulder blade area so that we can move our arms from our backs when necessary.

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