Exercises for Pain Between Shoulder Blades
Hurting shoulder blades?
We show you easy exercises for burning pain between shoulder blades.
1 MINUTE QUICK GUIDE
Many people experience constant burning pain between their shoulder blades or in their upper back. This pain can make it difficult to find a comfortable position and can interfere with daily activities.
The good news is that there is a simple solution to burning shoulder blade pain: stretching.
Stretching the muscles in the neck, chest, and shoulders can help to relieve pain and improve flexibility. It can also help to improve posture, which can reduce the risk of further pain. We put together a simple exercise program for burning pain between shoulder blades:
PAINS
Typical Symptoms of Pain Between Shoulder Blades
Exercises and stretches to relieve pain between the shoulder blades
With just a few minutes a day you can relieve tension and burning pain in between shoulder blades. Start with these exercises now!
It is important to start slowly and gradually increase the intensity and duration of your exercises over time. You should also stop any exercise that causes pain. As long as your breaths are regular, long and calm, you are doing just fine. Should you, however, notice too much pain or discomfort, take a step back and find an intensity that fits you best.
Follow Jo's stretching routine on video or set your own pace by using our photo instructions below.
WHAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE WITH our exercises for pain between SHOULDER BLADEs
Improve and Support Correct Posture
Poor posture can contribute to burning shoulder blade pain. In our exercise program, we are focussing on stretching and lenghtening the chest muscles.
We believe that short chest muscles caused by working and sitting make our shoulder pull forward and increase tension in our back upper back muscles.
Reduce Pain and Stiffness in the Upper Body
Stretching helps to increase blood flow to the muscles, which can reduce pain and stiffness. It can also help to relax tight muscles and improve range of motion.
A typical symptom of burning pain between the shoulder blades is that the pain radiates in all directions of the back. Stretching in between shoulder pain improves flexibility in the entire back.
Increase Flexibility and Mobility with Stretching
Stretching helps to lengthen the muscles, which can improve flexibility and range of motion. This can be especially helpful for people with burning shoulder blade pain, as it can help to reduce muscle tension and improve posture.
Strenghten Muscles and Reduce Tension
Stretching can also help to strengthen the muscles, which can provide support for the joints and reduce the risk of injury.
This is especially important for people with burning shoulder blade pain, as it can help to strengthen the muscles in the neck, shoulders, and chest.
Consult a Medical Professional
Before beginning any exercises provided on this website, it is advised to consult a health professional, such as a physical therapist or chiropractor.
The exercise instruction and advice presented are in no way intended as a substitute for medical consultation. As with any exercise program, if at any point during your workout you begin to feel faint, dizzy, or have physical discomfort, you should stop immediately and consult a physician or doctor.
3 - 7 weekly
workouts
5 minutes
Total Exercise Time
Equipment?
An apartment corner
workout mat
EXERCISE 1 - Wall Corner Chest Stretch
STEP 1
Stand in a corner of your home and spread your arms out to the sides, keeping your elbows straight.
Raise your arms so that your hands are at face level. Keep your upper body straight.
STEP 2
Lean your upper body forward until you feel a stretch in your chest muscles, shoulders, arms, and even elbows.
It is important to stretch your arms only as far as you can without pain. The rule of thumb is: a stretching pain is good, but as soon as you have to hold your breath or grit your teeth, it is too much. You can do even more stretching if you tilt your upper body slightly towards the corner.
EXERCISE 1 | STEP 1
EXERCISE 1 | STEP 2
EXERCISE 2 - Floor Chest Stretch
STEP 1
Lie on your stomach and bend your left arm at a 90-degree angle. Turn your head to the right.
STEP 2
Push yourself up with your right arm, rotating your hips with it. Keep your left arm in the same position as before.
Feel the stretch in your chest and left shoulder.
STEP 3
Push yourself as far into the stretch as you need. You can go further into the stretch by pulling your right leg as far out as possible. Hold this position for at least 60 seconds.
STEP 4
Repeat on the other side.
EXERCISE 2 | STEP 1
EXERCISE 2 | STEP 2
EXERCISE 2 | STEP 3
what causes burning in between shoulder blades?
For many years, we also suffered from a burning pain between the shoulder blades and we simply could not explain it. The pain usually sits right in the middle and then radiates in all directions.
We started going to the gym and exercised certain regions of the back, hoping that stronger muscles would eliminate the pain. However, we lived with increasingly poor posture due to desk work. In fact, what many people don't know is that the burning pain between the shoulder blades doesn't get better when you train your back, because it's often not a sign of weak back muscles. Most common causes of this type of pain are:
THE Curved body
Before starting with stretches to relieve pain before shoulder blades, it is important to understand where the discomfort comes from. If you comprehend the way our muscular system works, then you leanr what to do in the future to minimize or get rid of your pain between the shoulder blades.
We have become real computer and desk animals. We spend the vast majority of our day sitting with our arms in front of us on our desks. Even if you don't have an office job, you'll see that you do most of your activities with your hands in front of your body, rather than next to it, above it, or even behind it. This is where the core problem lies buried: We no longer use our full range of motion!
Our bent posture causes our muscles, fascia and tendons to change. When you stop practicing certain movement patterns, you send a signal to your brain that this pattern is probably no longer needed.
As a result, the shoulders pull forward and the chest muscles shorten. At the same time, the tendons involved shorten as well and the fascia around the muscles harden. All of this is the consequence of our poor posture and lack of movement to compensate. But don't worry, we show you how to stretch in between shoulder blades!
WHY focus on chest stretches to fight pain between shoulder blades?
What happens to muscles that have to work too long and too much? They overacidify. And how does that usually feel like? Right, the muscles burn noticeably and need to be relieved.
Our shortened chest muscles force our back muscles to pull harder in order to compensate the imbalance and to keep our upper body straight. As a result, there is little time for the chest muscles to relax.
Normally, muscles contract and muscles relax again. In many cases, however, we sit for hours at the computer and force the back muscles to stretch permanently in order to somehow still keep the body in balance. This is extremely strenuous, so the muscles overacidify and the burning pain between the shoulder blades sets in.
Now you may be able to imagine why it makes little sense to train the back at the gym and thus put even more pressure on it. The problem is not weak back muscles. In fact, they are probably relatively well developed, since they have to work permanently. Our problem is the shortening of the chest, which leads to the fact that our back can no longer relax. Therefor, the best stretches for in between shoulder blades are chest muscles streches!
Wrong habbits in self-diagnosing burning pain between shoulder blades
In order to fully understand how to get rid of burning in between shoulder blades, we recommend a couple of chest stretches and relief stretches - besides certain other lifestyle adjustments. When you burning pain in between the shoulder blades, people tend to desperately look for the position in which it hurts or burns less and remain in this position. Often, we avoid certain movements because it may cause pain. We believe this is an alarm signal from your body (and yes, that is often true).
When the burning back pain hits us, we try not to tense certain body regions for weeks, months, or even years in order to relieve the painful areas. That is not necessarily the wrong thing to do for a short periode of time. However, our bodies get used to this new malposition and more problem occur because of the imbalance in our body. Less movement leads to shorter muscles and more discomfort/pain. Easy stretches for shoulder blade pain relief can be one solution instead of preventing certain movements.
We follow the misconceptional belief that the reason for burning between the shoulder blades is probably weak back muscles and we start going to the gym. Stronger muscles in the back area are supposed to create better stability. This is not often the case however. When strenghtening muscles without stretching, they only become even more tight and shorter.
agonist and antagonist - understanding their interactions
Most people conclude from back pain or burning pain between the shoulder blades that the back muscles are underdeveloped and therefore pain arises from this "weakness". However, in most cases this is not true.
We would like you to always keep the theory of agonist and antagonist in mind when stretching to relieve pain. As so often in this world, there is usually a player and an opposing player. The two together form a balance, like the biceps and triceps do to allow you to flex and extend your arm. Since we find this system everywhere in our body, we asked ourselves what happens when one of the two players gets out of balance? What does that do to the opposing player?
What effect does this have on our overall structure? This is where we think we have found what we were looking for and have developed a concept of how to always bring ourselves back into balance should pain occur in certain parts of the body. This helped us putting together a few simple exercises for pain between shoulder blades.
agonist and antagonist - understanding their interactions
We usually sit, write and work slightly hunched over and contracted, but this is obviously not how we want to stand or even walk. So what do we have to do? We straighten our upper body and pull our shoulders straight again. This is done by the muscles around the shoulder blades. This is also its task and it does not let go of this task so easy. So it permanently tries to balance our body.
The overall construct of muscles, fascia and tendons is very strong. When all of them decide to shorten and harden in a new position, the counterpart has to work harder and harder to fight against it. In addition, our back muscles become extremely stretched while the front pectorals continue to shorten and the shoulders pull forward.
So what do we need to get rid of this pain between the shoulder blades?
It's simple: we need to straighten our posture! The pectoral muscles need to be stretched, the tendons need to be stretched again and the fasciae need to be loosened. All this will automatically make your back relax more and more and the pain between the shoulder blades will disappear.
This is also the reason why you can probably even make the burning disappear for a short time within the first 5 minutes with our exercises. For a lasting effect, you need training in the form of exercises several times a week, but with our concept you only need about 5 minutes a day.
We will now show you the two exercises that we do every day to rebalance our wrong posture and with which we could get rid of this burning pain between the shoulder blades.
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