Are you neglecting your shoulder health?

If our shoulders aren’t moving correctly (the assessment for this is standing against the wall and being able to keep our lower back, shoulders, back of our head with our elbows at 90°, level with our shoulders and keeping the whole of the arm in contact with the wall), if this isn’t possible, it’s indicative of shoulder dysfunction. If our shoulders aren’t moving correctly and are limited in their range of motion this will affect the amount that our upper arms can swing, elbows can spring and therefore it will affect the elastic connection that we want to have with the corners of our horses mouths. If we have noticed that one of our shoulders is more sticky than the other this could lend itself towards having an unequal contact.

Sometimes the root cause of a crooked seat could be one dysfunctional shoulder.

So firstly if you haven’t done the assessment progress test to check your shoulder mobility against the wall, please do this. It will give you a good starting point before you begin the shoulder series classes.

Did you know that most shoulder pain is due to limited range of motion in the scapula / shoulder blades?

So we’re just going to begin by having a look at our scapula movement and explaining how our scapula should move.

1. Elevation- the scapula raise up. People often get stuck in elevation and this is something we have to be mindful of when we’re exercising, not to allow our shoulders to rise up towards our ears.

2. Depression – dropping the shoulder blades down. This is often something we have to think about doing.

3. Protraction – this is where the shoulder blades slide away from the spine. This gives us a nice stable shoulder girdle.

4. Retraction – where the shoulder blades squeeze towards the spine.

5. Upward rotation – we need this rotation of our scapula to allow us to put our arms up overhead. Again this is a movement that often becomes inhibited and we steal movement from shoulder elevation in order to get our arms above our head. This can pinch one of the muscles on top of our shoulder causing us a lot of pain.

6. Downward rotation – this is where the lower angle of the scapula draws towards the spine and often our scapula gets stuck in this position also.

Try these movements to see how your shoulder blades are moving. Are they equal? With a mirror