heal your shoulders by walking

(North Coast, California)

The day after I got back home from Greece, I was out on a long walk on a dirt road in Northern California (poor me, haha), and got preoccupied with how much my shoulder blades were moving as my arms swung, and how I couldn't really be sure what my own bones were doing unless I was monitoring the area with my own hand.  (You do need to cultivate a certain amount of self-absorption for this kind of learning!) *

Is my scapula moving around back there, even though I'm trying not to?

Because of tight and short tissues in the front of our shoulders (pectoralis muscles, internal rotators, etc.), we tend to hunch up, thrust our ribs forward, twist around, and squeeze our shoulder blades back when reaching or swinging an arm back.** Would you like to check and see if you can align your shoulders better as you bring your arm back (aka shoulder extension)? Real shoulder extension is glenohumeral joint extension, and it means that the head of the humerus pivots in the glenoid fossa, and the scapula has to stay still while the arm moves back. 
So I was trying to swing my humeri while stabilizing the scapulae, because I was chasing that delicious feeling you get when long-dormant muscle fibers wake up, look around and grin with delight. "Look! I'm finally aligned and breathing! Yay!" say the long-neglected muscle fibers. You know that feeling, right? (I'm not kidding here: I do own the url ALIGNMENTBLISS.COM, though I haven't utilized it. Yet.) 
Small digression before I tell you about the little shoulder thrill move:

When we are walking, our legs should be pushing back to propel us forward (see Jillian Nicol's very funny blog post). So should our arms (on the opposite side). Our forward propulsion power should come from hip extension (leg going back), and our reciprocal arm swing effort should come from shoulder extension, with hip and shoulder flexion (the forward swing) coming mostly from momentum.  What most of us chair-sitters tend to do is to lift the forward leg or arm (effort on the flexion), and then just kind of let the hind limb trail back until it's time to lift it forward again. Lots more on that later, or in the meantime you could browse hip extension gait alignment bowman… 
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Here's what I entertained myself with on my walk, but for the photos and for practice 
it's best to just stand (weight in heels, neutral pelvis and ribs) and try this:

1) Reach across your back with your left hand and touch      your opposite (right) shoulder blade, i.e. scapula. 

2) Move your right arm backwards and forwards, feeling the medial edge or corner of your scapula bone as you allow it to move forward and back.

3) Then bring your right shoulder forward to move

the scapula away from your spine until that edge (scapula's medial border) is flattened against the back of your rib cage. (You will probably have to pull that shoulder forward and that is fine, as long as it's not hunching UP.) 


4) Now keep your scapula wide and flattened, and slowly swing your right arm back without letting the scapula move.  Be very mindful (that means notice what you're doing) and strict (but nice) with yourself. For now it is a slow and very small movement.  (At least, on me it is!) 

Do it on both sides, of course.

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When you are ready to understand more, try this out: Can you neutrally-align your humerus ("elbow pit" forward) and move it back while keeping the scapula still (no hunching up, or scrunching back), AND keep the spine still (no thrusting ribs forward or twisting spine around)? I think looking at yourself in the mirror is the only way to check yourself on this one.

ELBOW PIT FORWARD (Neutral alignment elbow)

ELBOW PIT NOT FORWARD (Internally Rotated Humerus)

THIS IS AN ELBOW PIT

Hunching, Schrunching, Twisting & Rib Thrusting

Now go out and take a slow walk, one arm crossed behind your back feeling out your scapula and keeping it still as you gently swing that arm back (naturally synchronized with opposite leg pushing back) perhaps hoping not to attract too much eye-rolling attention from passersby. (I live in Berkeley, California, where people are used to seeing unusual behavior. More about that later, too!) 

BONUS with the arm-behind-the-back method: the left shoulder is getting the beginnings of a really helpful stretch at the same time as you're working on the right shoulder. I worked on this consistently for a half-hour or so switching back and forth, and I felt amazing the next day.  Try it!

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CAUTION: Do Not pull the monitoring hand across your back with your other hand or anyone else's, or you can damage yourself! If your arm can't reach far enough on its own steam to feel the other scapula, just keep trying a little bit every day and it will get better. 

In the meantime, here's another method to monitor what your shoulder blade is up to:

Reach across your chest and lay your left hand over your right shoulder with your fingertips touching the medial border of your right scapula.  Do you feel that edge sticking up and moving when you move your arm?  

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Flatten your scapula against your back and don't let it move as you bring your arm back. (Again, you will probably have to pull that shoulder forward, and that is fine!)  

And then switch arms, of course.

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* (I do still have a lot more to say about Greece and toe extensors, and I have to mention right now that Alignment Begins At The Feet, even though now I'm all of a sudden talking about shoulders. But the nature of thinking about our bodies is that the main focus has to shift around between body parts, back & forth and up & down, so  gradually that bigger inner picture starts to emerge.)  

** So? We do what we need to do to get the job done, right? There is a problem with these tactics, though. When we skip over a whole joint in order to attain a motion, and we do that hundreds of times a day for hundreds and thousands of days, the tissues around that joint will die from lack of blood flow (= oxygen) and that joint will eventually have big problems, and so will the others areas that are compensating (neck, upper and lower back for instance).
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