The Real Reason Your Shoulder Pain Isn’t Going Away

If your shulder is constantly tight, restricted…painful, or maybe you have shoulder impingement, toendonitis, a rotator cuff injury or nerve irritation down your arm? If any of these came on without a direct trauma to the shoulder area, then the REASON the shoulder is restricted, painful, tight and injured is the underlying structure that allows your shoulder to glide – the rib cage and thoracic spine!

Yes, the shoulder tissues are inflammed, tight, irritated and even injured… but they cannot heal without the cause of that overload being removed… So if you have shoulder issues that just keep coming back, this might be the real reason your shoulder pain keeps coming back – and – what you can do about it

Want to read the transcript instead?

here it is…

The Real Reason Your Shoulder Pain Isn’t Going Away

 Restore the foundation, release the shoulder

If your shoulder pain keeps coming back no matter how many times you stretch, crack, or massage it… this is for you.

Hey,  I’m Alexis Weidland, Osteopath and BlossomingMe — and in this video, I’m going to show you why most shoulder pain treatments don’t work long term…
…and what you need to focus on instead to finally feel free in your shoulder again.

Spoiler alert: It’s not the shoulder.

It’s what’s underneath it that’s jamming things up.

Most people — and honestly, most therapists — go straight to the site of pain.
They stretch the shoulder… needle the shoulder… tape the shoulder… and strengthen the shoulder

And yeah, it might feel better for a bit.
But the pain always comes back. Why?

Because they’re not asking why the shoulder is overloaded in the first place.

Here’s what you’re not being told:

✅ Your shoulder is designed to move with your rib cage and thoracic spine
✅ If your rib cage is stiff, tight, or rotated — your shoulder has to do more work, AND all while in a sub-optimal position making things more prone to irritation, impingement, injury and well, pain
✅ That mechanical stress shows up as pain, pinching, reduced range of movement and tightness

No matter how hard or how much you try to stretch or smash your shoulder with exercises or foam rollers, the pain continues to return…
Because the root cause is still sitting there — locked in your rib cage.

Here’s Why

This is especially true if:

• You sit at a desk

   

• You train or regularly do things overhead – like hanging washing (seriously!) or painting rooves
• Or you suffer from chronic stress and/or altered breathing patterns i

All of that causes compression through the ribcage and thoracic spine. Reducing movement of the upper body and choking your shoulders’ ability to move freely.

Let’s Feel What I Mean

Let me help you feel how ribcage and thoracic spine position affects range of movement in the shoulder:

First, slouch – feel your upper chest drop downwards and as you do this, your shoulder roll forward and your upper back also rounds. Notice how there is not only less length between your pelvis and top of your head, but also, you may be able to feel the reduced space between the thoracic vertebrae themselves?

Now, bring your arms up to the side, as far as they can. Can you feel that the top, most forward part of the true shoulder joint, the gleno-humeral joint might feel slightly uncomfortable, or pinched, or like it won’t go further?

Now, keep your arms there and straighten your posture. Now see if you can lift your arms higher… Can you? Are you able to feel the glide of the humerus, more to the back in its joint?

If you are not sure you were doing it right, just repeat lifting your arms while slouched, then relax, stand straight and lift your arms again and notice if you are able to lift your arms high while in one posture and also if there is greater comfort in the movement in one of the postures.

Did you feel it?

Hopefully, you can feel how the change in position of the thoracic spine, together with the rib cage alters the position that the shoulder joint works in and how this affects not only the range of movement achieved at the shoulder, but also the change in tension of the tissues and joints and how repeated movement in this position, could cause irritation, inflammation, pinching, nerve impingement and more

→ That’s the power of the rib cage. Alter the function, position, mobility, tissue tension of the rib cage, and you alter the position, mobility, tissue tension and function of the head, the jaw, the neck and the shoulders, as well as your stress levels, your ability to breath correctly, your nervous system function – sympathetic and parasympathetic balance AND the way that movement and energy is transferred to and from the lower half of the body.

That’s the missing link.
And once you feel it, you can’t unfeel it.

3 Steps to Improve your shoulder – Pain, Mobility, Function

This is why I created the Rib Cage Reset — a mini-course designed to:

• Loosen up your thoracic spine

   

• Restore rib mechanics
  

   

  • And give your shoulder space to move the way it’s meant to

     

• Then strengthen the stabilising muscles for control, comfort and strength

to unlock the centre of your system, allowing better function and comfort of the parts, like the shoulder blade and shoulder.

So if your shoulder’s been tight, pinchy, or painful — and nothing’s worked —
There’s a good chance the problem isn’t where you feel it… it’s what’s underneath.

To find out more about your specific situation, book an assessment with one of our practitioners, or work on it yourself, from home with my ribcage reset mini-course. Check it out, in the link below

Got Questions?

So that’s it for today. Did it raise any questions or aha moments? If so, I’d love to hear them. So please put those in the comment section. I love answering questions. I hope you found today useful. And if you know someone who could use this information, please share it. Remember to comment, like and subscribe.

Until next time and in health, bye for now.

Click the Button Below for my RibCage Reset min-course

Interested in further reading?

1. 1. 1. Effect of Head & Shoulder posture on shoulder function
      2. Treating Diaphragm function helps improve Shoulder mobility and pain
      3. Relationship between Breathing Dysfunction and Scapular Mechanics
      4. Thoracic function improvemenmt with manual therapy improves subacromial pain/impingement syndrome
      5. Dysfunciton of scapular mechanics results in pain

About Blossoming Me

BlossomingMe offers a fully integrated approach to your wellbeing. Located on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Sarah is our Cranio-sacral and Remedial Massage Therapist and health and lifestyle coach. She can help relieve those problematic knots, tightness and other specific ailments to promote a healthy recovery. These complementary massage therapies can be combined to suit your needs, and include: craniosacral therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reiki, remedial, swedish, and body-mind-massage. 

Our qualified Osteopath, Alexis, offers a drug free, minimally invasive, “hands on” treatment focusing on the musculoskeletal system with its associated muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, bones and joints. Alexis takes a functional approach. This means that she focuses on the way a component (body part, tissue or group of tissues) performs its role, as well as the way the body works, performs and integrates as a whole. Our team can support you to improve your posture and therefore your overall health.