Frequent neck & shoulder pain

[Phill4]

May be more the spine than the shoulder. Specially if you feel "entrapment"

 

[gottathink]

May be more the spine than the shoulder. Specially if you feel "entrapment"

Yes, often the spinal thoracic curve is excessively kyphotic (hunched) or over extended which creates either, a bent over spine or a flat spot in the mid thoracic area where there should be a gentle curve. The latter is routinely missed when people are bring assessed for shoulder, arm, neck pain.

Thoracic hyper-extension occurs when people are conscious of pulling their shoulders back and standing up straight but they don’t activate the rectus abdominals (the washboard abdominal muscles) to stabilize the ribs down. What happens when you do a pectoral (chest) stretch or pull the shoulders back without holding the ribs down with your abs is that the tight pectoral (chest) muscles stay tight and pull the ribs up—the thoracic spine goes into an unnatural extension and becomes someone’s upright posture which distorts the whole spine. Consequently unnatural curves develop in the neck and or low back. This distorted stacking of the vertebra stresses all the tissues around the spine and the nerve roots causing tension in the muscles these nerves supply.

So when doing stretches for the shoulders, work on not letting the ribs pop-out or -up by strongly activating your upper abdominal muscles. People may need to do some specific abdominal strengthening work first to achieve an ability to stabilise the lower ribs when doing other exercises or stretches.

 

[gottathink]

After about 4 months combining those stretches

These exercises and stretching is relatively quite advanced, look cool will give them a go but likely not helpful for many people due to the level of difficulty.