Breathing and Your Bum Shoulder

Pain and/or assymetry in your shoulder(s) can be attributed to scapular/thoracic spine dysfunction a vast majority of the time. To help fix it, we all know that including a healthy dose of scapular stabilization and thoracic mobility exercises is a must:

1. Scapular wall slides
2. Push-up variations
3. Face Pulls
4. Behind the neck pull-aparts
5. Foam rolling of the t-spine or using a tennis ball (for all you tough guys: "Soft Tissue Work for Tough Guys.")

But did you know that fixing your breathing pattern can also help with your shoulder pain?

Over the weekend, I attended the Perform Better seminar in Boston and had the opportunity of listening to the likes of Alwyn Cosgrove, Mike Boyle, Juan Carlos Santana, and Gray Cook.

Gray Cook brought up a VERY interesting point concerning how we breath and shoulder dysfunction. But first, we need to find out a few things.

1. Test your shoulder ROM for assymetry. Make a fist with both hands and reach behind your back with both. Left hand internally rotates and goes up your lower back, right hand externally rotates and goes behind the neck. Have someone measure the distance between the two fists behind your back. Now do the exact opposite and measure the distance. Someone with poor scapular stabilization and/or poor thoracic mobility will have a noticeable discrepency between the two.

2. Now take a deep breath. Seriously, go ahead...take a DEEP breath, I'll wait.

Did your shoulders rise when you took that breath? I am willing to bet that they did. Essentially, what you're doing is telling your traps and levator to fire...over and over and over and over. No wonder your shoulder hurts!

What you need to do is "reset" your breathing pattern to do more diaphragmatic breathing (breath through your stomach). To do so, lie on your stomach with your hands on your forehead, palms facedown on the floor, legs straight. Now, take that same breath, but THROUGH THE STOMACH. Basically, your low back should go up, not your chest/back. Do this for three minutes, making sure each time that your lower back rises.

After three minutes, re-test your shoulder ROM. Your shoulder ROM should have increased by a noticeable margin. That Gray Cook is one smart cookie.