Shoulder Pain Breakdown: Common Triggers & Stretches for Fast Recovery

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Do you have pain in your shoulder that seemingly came out of nowhere? Difficulty lifting your arm anywhere above 90 degrees? You can’t achieve this full range of motion. And do you work at a computer? Because chances are you may be suffering from a condition known as frozen shoulder or adhesive capsulitis. This is a condition in which the capsule of the shoulder becomes increasingly inflamed over time. The etiology of this condition is somewhat unknown. However, there are many theories as to why it is this way. Today we’ll be talking about chiropractic treatment for frozen shoulder or adhesive capsulitis. So normally in a condition such as frozen shoulder, it’s due to. It starts off first with a forward head posture. And so we call this in chiropractic care altered Biomechanics of the suboccipital bone. And so if I just take my spine model here, we can see the base of the skull is just here. Now, just underneath the base of the skull, we have the biomechanics of the occiput, the base of the skull, and the first cervical vertebrae. So right here, during computer work, our forward head posture, it compresses the joints just underneath the base of the skull. Now, when it does this, it alters as well the functionality of the muscles just off the side of the neck that attach to the top of that bone, known as the trap muscle, as well as this large band like muscle that comes down the front of your neck called the SCM or the sternocleidomastoid. So when these muscles are altered due to the base of the skull being out of alignment, it does not allow the arm to lift as high.

And so this becomes the first phase of frozen shoulder. Altered shoulder biomechanics. When this happens, the humeral head or the head of this bone right here, that inserts in that ball and socket joint, it can’t drop. And so when this bone can’t drop because these muscles are too tight, it then compresses the rotator cuff musculature. And when the rotator cuff becomes compressed that’s really when that inflammation starts to build and build and build ultimately leading to the etiology of the frozen shoulder. So in the chiropractic world it starts with a shift in posture, a shift in the joints of the neck of the suboccipital region, leading to increased hypertonicity in your musculature, which then alters the movement quality of the shoulder joint. So chiropractic care. There are many different ways to begin to alter the biomechanics to bring it back to a normal position. But one of the treatments is, of course, adjustments to the base of the skull to improve the biomechanics of the joints that have moved out of position. Now, once the biomechanics are restored, then the tissues that attach to that shoulder joint can then relax. Once they begin that relaxation process, this allows the joints to sit into a more comfortable position, which will eventually decrease that inflammation over time. So it’s all about changing patterns in your environment to help improve your posture from the get go. So that means you know better workplace environment and ergonomic assessment to help reduce the amount of load on the base of the skull.

So that might mean, you know, moving your desk in a little bit better. Getting up and moving around throughout the day to improve the movement quality of that joint, as well as stretching and lengthening through the side of the neck. So let’s go through two main stretches that you can perform at home to go along with your chiropractic adjustment to help the movement quality of the base of your skull. So the first stretch I’d like to show you is a stretch for that upper trapezius muscle. One of the main muscles impacted during this frozen shoulder. So what you’ll do is with the affected arm is you can either put it under your leg like this. Because I know with the frozen shoulder the biomechanics are really painful. And so we put it just underneath our thigh like this. And then what we do is we take the other hand, we bring it over the top of our head, and we just pull our head to the side like this. So now I’m feeling a nice deep stretch through that upper trapezius muscle, and you can hold this stretch for 10 to 15 seconds and then let the head come back up to target the second muscle or the SCM muscle. What you’re going to want to do again is if you can put the arm behind your back, it would be much more efficient. So you put the hand and arm behind the back, rest it there, and then what you’re going to do is rotate the head to the opposite side.

Take the hand on the other end and tilt the head backwards. So at this point, I can really feel a nice deep stretch through that SCM muscle just at the front. Now again, if you can’t put the arm behind the back, you can always just put it under your thigh and then stretch to the other side, holding that stretch for 10 to 15 seconds. To mobilize the base of the skull to encourage movement around your occiput. What you’d like to do and what you’re going to want to do is if the head is forward, these muscles are becoming weak and tight. So you’ll just do a chin tuck where you’ll push the head backwards so you can see that the base of my skull is rocking back and forth. So if we’re stuck like this all day, we need to reverse that. So what we do is we tuck the chin and hold, get a nice deep stretch through the back. Bring the head again forward and tuck. Again, a biomechanic problem is likely due to environmental stressors, right? Whether it be from working at a computer desk, driving all day, or possibly just having the shoulders rolled in a little bit too much. So we need to do the things that are going to reverse the unhealthy behaviors. And that means the two stretches that we just went over – occipital movements, base of the skull movements, and chiropractic adjustments to help maintain the structure and integrity of the spine and shoulder biomechanics. I hope this is helpful.