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Releasing Tight Shoulders
Yesterday I worked on a client complaining of left shoulder pain.
She has mild thoracic scoliosis. I started her prone and worked her upper back. Her spine curves to the left slightly so her left ribcage was rounded and prominent both anterior and posterior, while her right ribcage was flattened and moved into the body both anterior and posterior. Her left scapula was pushed into abduction and the left humerus was moved anterior and into medial rotation. Because the curves, both in the thoracic spine and the ribcage, were mild, I was able to get them to lessen.
The left scapula floated back toward a more neutral position and the humerus came posterior. I flipped her over to work her neck for a few minutes. Sitting at the top of the table I noticed her left shoulder was shortened. In other words, the space between the neck and the left lateral shoulder was almost 2 inches less than the space between the neck and the right lateral shoulder. Her left clavicle had a bump in the middle of it.
I asked if she had ever broken it and she told me she had not. I immediately thought that bump needed to be lessened. Using an SMRT position, I moved both shoulders and held them in the position for 30 seconds. When I released the shoulders were quite a bit more balanced, but instead of the bump in the left clavicle going down there was now a more prominent bump in the right clavicle. Apparently that bump was supposed to be there all along!
Learn more at Full Circle’s Spontaneous Muscle Release Technique: Shoulder, Axilla, Ribcage, & Upper Back class in San Diego, CA, January 22-25, 2015. Please go to https://efullcircle.com/workshop-schedule/ to register.
