Shoulder pain / rotator / impingement
Shoulder impingements usually manifest from becoming too ‘round shouldered’ either through desk based work, manual work or even too much exercise that promotes more chest pressing exercise. We predominanty find ourselves pushing things than pulling things which means our front levers often get overworked and overdeveloped leaving our posterior muscles (pulling back / retractor muscles) to become lengthened / stretched / taut (like the strings on a guitar!). This conflict of levers effects the position of the shoulders which in turn can create a poor 'hinge' creating pain and inflammation.
Things that can help speed up recovery:
- Try to investigate what the catalyst was behind the nature of your injury and reduce or stop doing it for now to help break the pain cycle.
- Help reduce inflammation (if its been like that for some time) but also promote a stretch to help take tension off that lever.
- Put a plan in place to stretch front lever (chest) and strengthen back lever (back) to help reduce the likeliness of this coming back again.
I love a good shoulder to rehab! A lot of shoulder imbalance stems from a tight chest, hence I do lot of release through the chest prior to rehabbing the shoulder. Expect me to strip through the entire shoudler girdle and finish with some great stretches to promote better mobility. I often rocktape the shoulder girdle after to help stabilise and reduce gravitational loading to help give you a few days grace to allow everything to settle.
Stretch chest out as much as you can every day (elbow against door and lean through for 60 seconds). I’ve got a great rock tape (kinesiology) trick that can help ease off the shoulder girdle too.
