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How To Solve Your Stubborn Shoulder Pain: Somatic Shoulder Slings

Uncategorized Oct 09, 2020

Think of your body as a car. If you brought it to a mechanic and told them something was wrong with the steering alignment, do you think they would just investigate how the wheel turns? No. They'd dive under the bonnet and check out how the system of steering components are all working together or not.

This is exactly the same when looking at solving shoulder pain. Here's why.

Your shoulder girdle is made up of 2 components, your shoulder blades, collar bones. These bones connect your arms on each side. Your collar is attached to the top of your breast bone and your shoulder blades sit on the back of your rib cages. So when it comes to just stretching your shoulder muscles to alleviate tension can you see where the problem might be? There's a lot of things that have to work together in order to have smooth shoulder function that doesn't cause you pain.

But don't worry here's a beautiful sequence that targets all of your shoulder components in one go! This helps you get a clear understanding of what's not working and how to rectify this.

Somatic Shoulder Slings

Position

Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet on the ground.

Lift your arms to vertical, in line with your shoulders.

Keep your elbow straight throughout this sequence.

Start each movement from your shoulder blades.

Don’t pull your arm out of its socket as you reach.

Reach your arm towards the ceiling.

Feel your shoulder blade lift up and move out towards your side body

Does it slide across the back of your ribcage?

Is your ribcage being pulled forwards with this move while the opposite side releases into the ground? If not what's happening?

Lower your shoulder back down and feel the head of the shoulder descend down into your shoulder socket.

Notice how your shoulder blade sits on the ground.

Repeat this exercise and alternate the movement with one arm reaching up as the other is releasing down towards the ground.

Allow the centre of your body to relax and roll with this movement.

Through this action, you're creating a sling of shortening and lengthening for your shoulders, spine and ribcages. You're improving your ability to lengthen tight muscles, shorten weak muscles and vastly improving you're overall function and mobility that is contributing to your shoulder pain!

For a full understanding of how muscular tension and knots lead to poor posture, chronic pain and even emotional stress, check out "Stuck Stress Solutions", my introductory course to somatic movement.

In this, we cover my most effective techniques to identify the real causes of your stress and pain, and how to quickly release that tension in just 10 minutes a day.

Check out Stuck Stress Solutions here.