One of the most common areas of annoying niggles or pain that we see is the shoulder.
Without diving too deep into the posture and pain subject let’s just say that posture will influence the position of your joints and the position of your joints will determine how well they work. This is the difference between smooth pain free ranges of motion or slowly grating away your poor tendons.
If you are hunched over a computer or your phone reading this right now, these are the positions that we are referring to. So sit up and keep reading.
The shoulder joint is the combination of the scapula (shoulder blade) and humerus ( upper arm bone) and is the most mobile joint we have. It relies for the most part on many muscles to make sure that the scapula can be both stable and mobile and the humerus can move well with the scapula. If some muscles over time become “stiffer” they can pull on either the humerus or scapula and change the position and therefore the function of the shoulder, usually for the worse. The muscles that tend to get stiffer are usually on the front. You know the chest, biceps and neck. The ones that get weaker tend to be the ones we can’t see. Which leads us to the face pull.
Every one of our training clients do the face pull or some variation of it every session. Either with a band or cables and as a warm up or within the main sequences. This versatile movement targets the neglected area of upper back and helps to keep those little muscles called the rotator cuff employed.