Recently a 38 year old female, yoga instructor and former dancer was experiencing shoulder pain at the end of the day when lying on her back prior to fall asleep on her bed. She has never experienced such pain at that intensity in both shoulders simultaneously.
Her practice is constantly changing and evolving and in the last few months she has been including handstands and planks on elbows and hands. On the other hand she has been spending longer periods of time in front of the computer doing admin work for her new business practice.
When I assessed her posture she looked as expected, straight & upright. Her shoulder blades were slightly winging and her glenohumeral joint looked internally rotated, indicating postural changes which could give rise to pain and dysfunction. She had a significant residual tone in her upper trapezius specially at the anterior fibers, the ones joining the collar bone.
Even though she was aware of her posture constantly the combination of increase in demands of her shoulder stability due to the handstands and planks, long hours typing and looking at her laptop and the added stress element of setting up her new business placed her shoulder joints in a compromised position that was creating a painful reaction when the shoulders were not under any stress.
During the first session I worked on the trapezius with some dry needling, getting inside the armpit targeting the pectoralis minor and subscapularis muscles increasing the range of movement of the shoulder in external rotation. After doing this I added some light joint mobilization.
One week after she reported being sore for a day but the pain in the shoulders at the end of the day had stopped. Now we are working on scapula stability and upper thoracic mobility to minimize the ongoing load through her shoulders.
It’s sometimes important to consider when increasing load during certain activities to do so safely and over time to allow your body to adjust and acclimatize to the change of activity.
If you have any questions about your current training regime, please don’t hesitate to contact your Myotherapist.
Alvaro Torres- Elite Myotherapist
