The mid-back and shoulder blade (scapula) area is the focus of this blog and video. This area is commonly weak if someone presents with a proximal cross posture. This posture is characterised by rounding of the shoulders, forward head carriage and the chin jutting forward.
We see many people in our office with this postural presentation and they don’t often realise they suffer from it. From this proximal cross we can see a variety of problems as a results. Problems such as tension and or pain in the shoulders, upper back, mid back and neck. Headaches and tension in the chest may be a feature of this posture. We also see weakness in the deep neck flexors in the front of the neck and weakness in the muscles of the mid-back, around the scapula. These muscles rotate the shoulder back (external shoulder rotators). We shall refer to these areas as the scapula stabilising muscles, and these are the muscles that we are aiming to increase their strength. This will help to bring our shoulders back and over our hips.
PART 1 SCAPULA CLOCK EXERCISE – Building Awareness
Stand with your arms our in front and your hands touching the wall. Splay your fingers out and rotate your elbows so your elbow pits are facing up. This will help to get some external rotation in your shoulders. Engage your core by having feel shoulder width apart, pulling belly button to low back and tucking chin in gently. Slowly and deliberately, bring your shoulder blades up, then down and then forward and backwards.
Do this for a minute.
Aim to repeat 2-3 times a day and perform for 1-2 weeks or until you feel you have more movement and more control of this area.
Then you can progress to the strengthening exercises in Part 2.
Any problem, stop and speak with your chiropractor.
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