Shoulder injury not getting better? Here’s maybe why

Do you remember the song from school about your ankle bone being connected to your leg bone and your leg bone being connected to your knee bone?

This might be why your shoulder injury isn’t getting better.

I’m going to show you exactly how a shoulder problem can be traced to your hip.

Let’s try an experiment

Sit tall in a chair with your feet placed firmly on the ground and your arms hanging loosely at your side.

Try to bring your left shoulder blade back towards your spine as far as it will go. Feel roughly how far you can move it. 

Now rotate your trunk all the way to your left and try the same thing again. 

What did you find?

Ok now try the same thing but instead of sitting tall try slumping forward into ‘bad’ posture.

What happened?

Did you find you had less shoulder motion when you changed the position of your trunk?

Good. Me too.

Now try this

Stand up and rotate your trunk to the left as far as it will go again. Keep your feet firmly on the ground and make a mental note of how much range of motion you have available.

Before trying the same thing again, rotate your left hip inwards as far as it will go.

What did you notice?

Your trunk didn’t go as far the second time?

Excellent!

So what did we just prove?

By changing the position of some joints we can affect motion at others.

So it’s possible that a lack of retraction at your shoulder (which will have a bunch of consequences for shoulder happiness), can be caused by a lack of motion in your trunk, which can be caused by a lack of motion at your hip.

Sounds obvious when you think about it.

The problem is who looks at your hip when you complain of a shoulder problem?

Hardly anybody.

That’s why you continue to get substandard results from your injury rehab programme. Most people are looking at the thing that hurts rather than the bigger picture.

As the song says, it’s all connected.

To truly resolve injuries you have to understand that and look deeper.

Book your Discovery Session now at our City of London gym to find out exactly why your shoulder injury isn’t getting better.