Winging it

I go to continuing education so you all don’t need to.  My most recent classes were about shoulders.  I learned a lot, which will obviously percolate into my training and my blog over the next while, but today I want to demystify a term that I’ve heard a lot in gyms and studios:  “winging” shoulder blades.

 

We all know that’s not ideal, but we don’t really know what it means or what to do about it.

 

Let’s start with a little bit of anatomy.  The shoulder blade is the site of a ton of muscle attachments.  It has true joints with the upper arm (the humerus), and with the collar bone (the clavicle).  While it lies on top of the rib cage, there is no true articulation between the ribs and the shoulder blade.  This is the key fact that relates to shoulder blade winging.

 

If everything is working like it should, the shoulder blade will slide freely along the ribcage, toward or away from the spine or toward or away from the head.  Sometimes it gets stuck or it pops away from the rib cage:  this is winging.

 

To prevent shoulder blade winging, we need to make sure that the rotator cuff muscles are strong, as well as the pectorals, the traps, and the rhomboids.  Also, we need to wake up one of my favorite muscles, the serratus anterior.  Additionally, (and this is the fun part), we need to make sure that none of those muscles are holding on too tightly—that means massage or chiro, depending on what’s going on.

 

Working with a trainer can help resolve any winging issues.  At the very least, having a workout buddy who can see what’s happening with our back when we are doing pushups (for example) can help a lot.

 

Go play.