Shoulder pain is one of the extremely common pains, and a limitation in shoulder range of motion is also a major cause of poor posture and therefore many other pains in the body. Most neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, upper back, and low back pain is at least partially caused by a lack of shoulder extension. In fact, a lack of shoulder extension is one of the crucial and forgotten root causes of many problems in the body.
Shoulder extension is the motion of moving the shoulder back behind the body. The arm hanging straight down at our side is 0 degrees of shoulder extension.
Shoulder extension is the motion of moving the shoulder back behind the body. The arm hanging straight down at our side is 0 degrees of shoulder extension.
The picture above with the arm hanging at the side, looks like the shoulder is positioned at its neutral 0 degrees of shoulder extension resting place. But hardly anyone has 0 degrees of shoulder extension. Most of us have about -30 degrees (and many of my patients have something like -70 degrees). The picture below shows -70 degrees of shoulder extension.
What this means is that almost all of us should be walking around like a zombie with our arms out in front of us. Instead of walking like a zombie, we've all found ways to cheat our way into allowing our shoulders to hang straight down. What we do to get our shoulder to hang down is to hunch our shoulders forward and slump through our mid-backs.
These are two of the most common components of the poor posture that causes us so much trouble, and it's lack of shoulder extension that is the usual root cause of these problems. We often blame these posture problems on the mid-back or the shoulder blades (tight pecs, for example), but usually it's coming from the shoulders themselves. Restoring shoulder extension is vital for balancing posture and for resolving most shoulder, elbow, and neck pains.
The stretch pictured above works wonders for restoring shoulder extension. You place your hand, front of your elbow, shoulder, and chest against the wall. If you have a stretch at this point, then you just relax in this position and allow the stretch to relax whatever is tight. If you don't have a stretch, then you can advance by turning your sternum away from the wall, stopping when you get a stretch, and aiming to be able to turn your sternum 60 degrees away from the wall. Hold a gentle stretch for 10-30 seconds, ideally having the stretch completely disappear after 10 seconds. Repeat this on the other side, and repeat the whole thing once per day for a month. You'll see significant improvements in your posture and shoulder flexibility.
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