The real reason you have shoulder pain, and how to fix it

The real reason your shoulders hurt, and how to fix it

Guest Blogger: Brett Mehlman

If you’re like most people, you carry much of your tension in your shoulders, and feel pain and discomfort in between your shoulder blades. Although you’re feeling the pain between your shoulder blades, this is not where the source of the problem originates. Sometimes overly stretching that area canl actually exacerbate the problem and continue the cycle of pain.

So let’s get to the source of the issue.

One of the biggest culprits of this tension and pain is your posture. We typically spend several hours a day with our arms reaching out in front of us at the computer, driving, eating, using the cell phone, etc. These activities cause our chest to become chronically tight and our shoulders to round forward.

Then why do you feel the pain in your back between the shoulder blades? This is because those muscles become weakened, inhibited and overstretched. They are constantly fighting to get back to their normal resting length. This constant fighting against the stronger and righted chest muscles causes fatigue, and boom, that’s where your pain is coming from.

To truly fix this issue you need to do the following:

1. Stretch your chest. A great stretch is to stand in the opening of a doorway and reach your arms out, holding on each side of the doorway with your hands. Keeping your hands holding each side of the doorway, lean forward until you feel a slight stretch, as your arms draw back behind you.

2. Strengthen your rhomboid muscles. While at your desk put your hand behind your head then pull your elbows as far behind you as you can, hold for 30-60 seconds, repeat 1x per hour, or as much as you can. You get more bang for your buck with this exercise as it will also stretch the chest.

3. Position yourself in an ergonomic position with your chair slightly closer to your desk/steering wheel. This will ensure you can keep your shoulder blades slightly back and together, so that they do not need to draw forward to reach for your keyboard/steering wheel.

4. Last, but definitely not least, come in to get regular deep tissue massages here at Fountains. The deeper work will not only release the overly tight chest muscles, but getting regular massages will also lengthen the adhered & tightened connective tissue that has built up. Deep Tissue Massage work is a necessity for your shoulders to fully and effortlessly return to their normal resting position. Breaking up the adhesions through massage, will cause any stretching and strengthening you do in the future to be more effective.

Doing the above regularly will address your pain at the source and help you find lasting relief!

You only get one body, take care of it!