Which Way Should Your Shoulder Blades Go? (Rerun)

by Baxter

Let’s talk about the shoulder blades today. Recently, while evaluating my newest batch of teacher trainees during their teaching intensive, I was surprised to hear the instructions to “move the shoulder blades toward the pelvis” when the arms were in the overhead position, such as in Urdhva Hastasana. I heard it in Warrior 1, in Utkatasana, in Downward-Facing Dog, and virtually anytime my young wards had the arms overhead. And I flinched each time they uttered it, which just about every one of them did for the four classes they taught. Without naming names, I should mention “always move your shoulder blades down your back” is an instruction that I have heard on many occasions from very experienced teachers. These trainees did not hear me utter such words, but I realized that some of their instructors were still using this outdated understanding. This is too simplistic, as it is not what actually needs to happen for healthy movement of the arms overhead and it can actually restrict the mobility of the shoulder joint for most students.

If you look at photos of Mr. Iyengar in the classic “Light on Yoga,” you can see that he is not doing that. His shoulder blades are clearly moving towards his arms, not away from them. (I refer you to the following plates: 12, 23, 42, 91 and 96.) So what is going on here, or more accurately, what is going on with the shoulder blades when the arms go overhead?

When your arms are hanging at your sides, your shoulder blades have several common ways they move: sliding upwards is called elevation, such as when you shrug your shoulders; sliding slightly downwards, called depression, like when you tug the bottom of a shirt downwards; sliding them apart or side ways, called protraction or abduction, like when you give yourself a hug; and squeezing them together called retraction or adduction, like when doing the Cobra with a doorknob.

Shoulder Blade in Neutral (Mountain Pose)

In these four basic movements, the shoulder blades don’t rotate much. Instead, they slide around in the general way they sit on your back upper rib cage. But in addition to those movements, there are two more movements that require a bit more imagination on your part, since we can’t quite see what is going on under the skin and muscles. The first happens when you take your arms overhead, whether forward and up or out the sides and up. It is called upward rotation of the scapula.  There is usually a bit of elevation of the entire shoulder blade from its neutral position, like in Mountain Pose, and a bit of protraction. But more noticeable is the out and up swing of the shoulder blade that allows for the greatest reach of the arms overhead.

Rotating Shoulder Blade

The opposite action is required to get the arms back down to your sides, and is called downward rotation. It is likely that a bit of depression of the shoulder blade and retraction also accompanies this action.

My teacher Donald Moyer refers to the rotational movement of the shoulder blades as “traffic circles.” Depending on which way the arms are moving or how they are positioned on the body, the traffic around the outer edges of the circle will flow in one direction the other. As an example of how you might imagine this, you might start with your awareness at the lower tip of your right shoulder blade. You can likely reach around and feel this with your fingers of your left hand. When your arm goes overhead, the traffic flows up the outer edge, across the top edge from right to left, and down the inner edge back to the lower tip of the shoulder blade. You might have to imagine there is a central pivot point in the shoulder blade, and the traffic causes the shoulder blade to rotate around that point. Then the traffic flows in the opposite direction as the arm comes down to Mountain pose position.

You might be asking yourself if there are times when saying “move the shoulder blades down the back” would be appropriate? And the answer is yes. For instance, with new students who have hunched shoulder blades that are semi-permanently elevated and forward rounded, you might have to ask, show and encourage them to depress the shoulder blades in Mountain pose.  I will keep a slight feeling of downward movement even as the arms approach the 90 degree mark, such as in Warrior 2 pose. In Warrior 2, there is a bit of upward rotation of the blades, but mostly protraction or widening away from the spine. The downward movement is helpful for those with the tendency to hike the shoulders in these lower arm positions.

But so what if you draw your shoulder blades down the back when they are overhead? What’s the big problem? Well, as your arms and shoulder blades swing up, the upper arm bone, the humerus, rolls slightly outwards, so as to have a better contact with the shoulder blade. If you then pull the “shoulder blades towards the pelvis”, the shoulder blades start to downwardly rotate, the arm bone pulls down with it, and the shoulder joint gets narrowed and pinched, meaning that the soft, non-bone structures can get pinched in an unhealthy way. I dislike demonstrating this “wrong” way of doing it for my students, because it quite literally pinches my gleno-humeral joint.

Having a clearer understanding of how the shoulder blades change positions on the rib cage will be very helpful to you as you try some of the shoulder openers we share with you because so many of them work more effectively if you encourage the upward rotation, protraction and elevation of the scapulae I have shared with you here today (see Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders and future posts about the individual poses). 


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All About Your Shoulders

by Nina

Your shoulder joint (glenohumeral joint) is a ball and socket joint. This joint attaches both to your ball of your arm bone (head of the humerus) and your shoulder blade (scapula). All three work together when you move your arms from the shoulders.

This structure provides the most range of movement of any joint in your body! Take a moment now to stand and see how many different positions you can take your arms in while moving from your shoulder joints, including overhead, behind your body, out to the sides, and across your body. Feel your arm, shoulder joint, and shoulder blades all moving together as you try those different position. Finally, take a minute to see how many yoga poses you can think of that take your arms into very interesting positions. Thank you, shoulders, for all the things you allow us to do, both in yoga and in everyday life! 

However, while the structure of your shoulders provides you with the ability to do take your arms into a huge variety of positions, it also makes the joint one of the most vulnerable in your body. So today I’m providing an overview of all the posts we have on the blog on the shoulders, including those on anatomy, special practices that stretch and/or strengthen the shoulders, and specific problems that can develop. As always, if you’re someone who is very flexible in your shoulder joints, focusing more on strengthening your shoulders rather than on stretching them further will help you keep the joints stable and protected. 

Anatomy 

In Which Way Should Your Shoulder Blades Go? Baxter describes the natural movement of the shoulder blades and how when you do yoga you can encourage that movement to find more opening in your shoulders. This is really worth reading because many yoga teachers get this wrong. 

Practices for the Shoulders 

In Featured Sequence: Opening Tight Shoulders Baxter provides a very simple, accessible sequence for those with tight shoulders.

In Featured Sequence: Standing Shoulder Stretches Baxter and I created a standing sequence that you can practice anywhere that helps improve shoulder flexibility. 

In Featured Sequence: Upper Body Flexibility Practice Baxter provides a full sequence for stretching the upper body, including lots of shoulder stretches.

In Building Upper Body Strength the Easy Way I share a sequence I designed for a friend who wanted to use yoga to strength her shoulders and arms. These are poses I myself practice on a regular basis. 

In Featured Sequence: Upper Body Strength Practice Baxter provides a full sequence for strengthening the entire upper body, including the shoulder joints. 

In Video of the Week: Dynamic Shoulder Sequence  Baxter demonstrates a sequence that will both stretch and strengthen your shoulders. 

In The Shoulders in Downward-Facing Dog Pose Baxter provides his recommendations for how to work with the shoulder blades in Downward-Facing Dog pose. 

In Living Proof: Increasing Shoulder Flexibility I describe which kinds of poses I used to improve my shoulder flexibility after suffering from frozen shoulder. 

Shoulder Problems 

In Friday Practical Pointers: Who Should Avoid Certain Movements of the Shoulders we provide information for which movements to avoid if you are having specific shoulder problems. 

In Arthritis of the Shoulder and Yoga Baxter describes how arthritis can develop in the shoulder joint and how to practice yoga if you develop it. 

In Yoga and Shoulder Joint Replacements Shari discusses what a shoulder joint replacement is and how you should return to yoga practice after having one. 

In Friday Q&A: Arm Strength and Upward Bow Pose Baxter answering a question about arthritis in the AC joint (part of the shoulder joint) and a possible tear in the supraspinatus muscle, addressing shoulder impingement and other shoulder problems. This particular post has quite a bit about anatomy in it. 

In Friday Q&A: Rotator Cuff Pain Baxter and Shari both answer a reader’s question about how to practice yoga while experiencing rotator cuff pain. 

Frozen Shoulder 

In Yoga and Menopause: Frozen Shoulders I discuss the condition of frozen shoulder and describe how to work with during freezing, thawing, and afterward based on my own experience. 

In Frozen Shoulder, Part 2 Baxter writes about his experience with frozen shoulder and new things he learned while he had it (some of which I’d know when I had it!) 

Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook and Twitter ° To order Yoga for Healthy Aging: A Guide to Lifelong Well-Being, go to Amazon, Shambhala, Indie Bound or your local bookstore.

For information about Nina's upcoming book signings and other activities, see Nina's Workshops, Book Signings, and Books.