It’s Not Just Posture Killing Your Shoulder Mobility

If Your shoulders are stiff, restricted and sore. And you generally stetch and foam roll your msucles and aim to use good posture… the it is probably the underlying structres that are not allowing your shoulders to move well or to heal. In fact you ave have tought posture was your problem, but it is not just your posture killing your shoulder mobility

Want to read the transcript instead?

here it is…

It’s Not Just Posture Killing Your Shoulder Mobility

Okay, so you’ve fixed your desk set up. You’ve consciously corrected your posture… but your shoulder still feels tight, sore, stiff.

Why? Because posture isn’t the full story. Hi, I’m Alexis Weidland, osteopath at Blossoming Me and Healthy Learning Lounge, and in this video I’ll break down a key setup for shoulder issues and how it’s not just about how you sit. It’s about your rib cage, how it moves, and how it functions.

Posture or something else?

See posture gets blamed for just about everything and for good reason. When you slouch or arch or lean, then your body needs to compensate and that can cause problems. But what’s the underlying structure or set of structures that changes mobility, function, tissue tensions when posture is bad, it’s how your rib cage sits and functions.

It’s how your pelvis sits and functions. It’s how your thoracic spine and rib joints and the fascia and tissues connecting your torso to your neck and shoulders or your torso to your lower body.

So you can have reasonable posture, but if your rib cage doesn’t move properly.Then you still have uneven tensions pulling on the rest of your body, and so you’ll still get reduced movement, tight muscles, pain in your neck and your head, your shoulders, your upper limb, your upper back, your chest, even, your diaphragm, your psoas muscles, your lower back.

Posture vs Function

Here’s the thing. Posture is static. But function? Function is dynamic.

For the shoulder to move freely, it needs to move on top of a stable and smooth ribcage surface. And the torso – that is the ribcage and thoracic spine needs to be able to move and to twist, to side bend, to bend forwards, and backwards. Without these movements, your ability to stretch and reach and get the most out of your shoulder is reduced.

If there are ribs pulling slightly out of position, muscle tension, and the surface that this shoulder blade actually glides on will become bumpy and uncomfortable, and this gliding movement then becomes restricted so that then your shoulder range reduces. When your rib cage is stuck, or pulling in an odd position or creating an uneven surface, the range of your shoulder is blocked. From the start, the position of your shoulder is altered and the muscles have to strain to compensate, and all that puts pressure on your nerves, your tendons and your rotator cuff muscles, and they become prone to circulation issues and more at risk of damage, and no amount of sitting up straight by itself can fix that.

For example,

if you have a rib that is rotating upwards,

•  then as it does so the joint between the rib above and below in the corresponding vertebra and the ligaments there, they all get strained.
• The intercostal muscles above and below get irritated, contracted, and one has to shorten and one has to lengthen whilst they’re contracted.
• And on top of this, the rib will poke out a little bit extra at the back,
  • and if this occurs in one or multiple of the ribs that sit underneath the shoulder blade, then the shoulder blade gets pulled out of position as well.
    • It might become winged and pulled outwards – stretching and irritating the rhomboid muscles, the subscapularis, et cetera;
    • and pulling the true shoulder joint upwards and forwards, altering how the humerus then connects into the glenoid fossa and compressing into where the bicep tendon originates.
    • The rib might also pull the shoulder blade upward so that now your true shoulder is actually sitting forwards and upwards as compared to its normal position.

This reduces space in the subacromial space, and here is where we can get irritated nerves and or tendons causing inflammation, pain, reduced shoulder range of movement and increasing risk of rotator cuff muscle or tendon tear.

What About Exercise, Posture, Taking Breaks?

Now, this rib restriction may get worse with tight muscles from weightlifting or from being, out and about gardening or from sitting hunched for too long, but they aren’t the causes. So you can improve your

• weightlifting technique. And
• ensure that you don’t slouch and
• that you take regular breaks from your computer work and from gardening.

But…

If you don’t improve the positioning and functioning of those ribs, then you can’t improve the tension in all those ligaments, tendons, and muscles, or the irritation into the nerves and the way that the shoulder blade does or does not move and glide over the rib cage or the range of movement available at the true shoulder joint or the whole shoulder complex.

So??

So then even when you improve your weightlifting technique, optimize your ergonomics and your posture, and you take breaks and stretches from all those tense, aching muscles. You can even foam roll them, but at best you’ll get temporary relief because the rib restriction is still there, pushing everything out of place, irritating tissues, and making it essential that all those muscles have to stay tight and switched on.

So what can you do?

Well, first I want to make it clear that making sure you

1. have good technique when weightlifting have good posture and
2. do optimize your work ergonomics as well as
3. taking regular breaks

are all essential to optimizing your outcomes and supporting those tight muscles to heal.

4.Taping your shoulder or using a brace could help to create awareness of your tendency to slouch.But

5. You also need to focus at least 10 minutes a day on improving your ribcage and thoracic spine function.

• • You can do regular, gentle daily movement exercises that bring circulation, mobility, and function back into your ribcage.
  • You can work carefully and specifically on any ribs or thoracic joints that are stuck and not sitting correctly.
  • You can work on optimizing your breathing techniques and spending a few minutes a day focusing on that.

Why again?

By helping your rib cage to function properly, again, you can 

👉create a faster relaxation response from your tight and aching muscles because they no longer have to compensate for the shoulder being pulled out of position.

👉Improve your body’s balance and the tension of your whole upper body, allowing you to feel more comfortable and more mobile into your chest, your upper and lower back, your pelvis, your shoulders, your neck, your head, and even your jaw.

👉 You reduce the risk of injury.

👉Speed up healing of any strained, sprained, or torn tissues, and

👉you support your breathing, your stress response, your nervous system function, allowing you to feel as comfortable and vibrant as possible.

So if you want real shoulder mobility results

You need to train from the inside out,

👉mobilize your ribs,

👉restore your thoracic spine function,

👉 retrain your breathing,

👉and then build control on top of that.

These tools are exactly what I teach inside the ribcage reset minicourse.

So if training, stretching, foam rolling posture drills haven’t quite helped, and your shoulders still feel stuck, it’s time to look deeper. Check out the Ribcage Reset mini course 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.