Key moves for strong and supple shoulders

Key moves for strong and supple shoulders

Have you ever experienced stiff, tight feelings around your neck and shoulders? If I ask a class this question, often more than half the hands go up. The shoulders are a common area for persistent niggles or pain.

To build and maintain strong, supple shoulders that move well and feel comfortable, let's look at a ‘helpful to know’ amount of basic anatomy and then put that understanding into some effective shoulder care moves and poses - when you can visualize and understand what's happening in your body, it can help you to move better.  

How do the shoulders work?

The shoulder girdle consists of three bones and four joints. That’s all you really need to know!

Bones of the Shoulder Joints

1. Collarbones (clavicle) (attaching to the breastbone (sternum)

2. Arm bones (humerus) 

3. Shoulder blades (scapula) sitting on the back of the ribcage

The four Shoulder Joints

1. Clavicle to sternum (breastbone) - the sternoclavicular joint (SC joint) across the top of the chest 

2. Clavicle to scapula - ( collar bones to shoulder blade) acromioclavicular (AC joint) at the top of the shoulder

3. Arm bone into socket (the ‘ball and socket’ of the shoulder)  - The glenohumeral joint (note, the ‘socket’  IS the side of the scapula or shoulder blade bone) 

4. The scapula (shoulder blades) on the rib cage at the back - scapulothoracic joint. ( a weird one, but still considered a joint.)

The  two key movements to understand are:

1. the shoulder blades movement on the upper back

2. the arm bone in the socket, supported by the rotator cuff muscles which wrap all round it.

   Let’s have a look

1. Movement of the shoulder blades (scapula)

Shoulder blade movement is in many ways the driver or keystone of your upper body and arm movement.

These flat-ish, ridged, triangular shaped bone sitting on the ribcage on the upper back, have a longer ‘hook’ section reaching over the head of the arm bone (acromium process) which connects to the collarbone at the front (the acromioclavicular -AC joint), and underneath this end point of the shoulder shelf, sits the shallow arm bone socket. 

Yes, it may be surprising to note, the arm bone socket IS the side of the shoulder blade - it’s the same bone, so the arm and shoulder blade move together to some degree. How much your shoulder blades can move around on your back affects how well your arms can move, and therefore how much of a feeling of overall upper body movement capacity you have. 

It's not uncommon for the shoulder blades to be a bit ‘stuck’ on the upper back. That's why we focus a lot on shoulder blade awareness and movement in class, working to make the muscles of the upper back more ‘moveable’ and pliable.

Front view of the shoulder blade and arm bone - the ball and socket of your shoulder. 

So the question to ask is, how well can you isolate and move the shoulder blades in all directions:

1. Up the back, shoulders towards ears (elevation)

2. Down, pulling shoulders down away form ears (depression)

3. To the sides of the upper back (protraction)

4. In towards the spine (retraction)

5. Rotate upwards and downwards as the arms reach up and come back down (rotation)

2. Movement of the glenohumeral joint (the arm bone in the socket- humerus in the glenoid fossa)

Your arms and your shoulder blades are moving together as a connected team. The arm bones sit in a very shallow socket, which gives them a huge capacity for movement. It is a pretty intricate system so we want them all moving well together, and to maximise the muscular support around this joint.

Great yoga moves for strong mobile shoulders

Here’s a gentle mini flow to warm up your neck and shoulders

Once you feel comfortable with your range of motion through these joints as we have explored above, You can progressively add load (i.e. or weightbearing) to the movements to further strengthen the muscles supporting the joints. Here’s an example:

After focusing on these more targeted movements, you can bring this shoulder awareness into your yoga poses, supporting more sustainable movement as your shoulders will be working better. Here’s a short flow sequence focusing on overhead range of motion for strong, supple shoulders.

After an upper body-focused yoga class, so many people say that they feel noticeably more easeful and relaxed across their chest and shoulders. It feels easier to breathe expansively through the ribcage, and people report a new awareness of tension and holding patterns in the neck and shoulders. Over time with regular targetted movement like this, these tensions unwind and repattern, and your shoulders will feel stronger and more supple, helping you to avoid or work with niggly discomfort that might show up sometimes. 

What have been your most helpful or favourite shoulder moves from class or from my videos?  Please add in the comments below. I’d love to hear!

*You can also check out this blog post,  ‘stretching from the inside out’ , where I talk about how improving breathing mechanics can get the rib cage moving better, which can often positively impact neck and shoulder pain.