The Fix for Stubborn Shoulder Blade Pain

If you have been dealing with chronic pain or aching between your shoulder blades that has not gone away despite countless hours spent rolling and stretching, the answer may be more than just a stubborn muscle knot.

 Typically, the root causes of this stubborn shoulder blade pain can be attributed to both thoracic spine stiffness and some weakness of the scapular stabilizer muscles. Below we will review how the thoracic spine and scapular muscles play a role in this pain presentation as well as exercises to address it.  

Thoracic Spine

The thoracic spine is essentially the section of your spine between the neck and low back. Since our ribs connect to our thoracic spine and houses our vital organs, this area of our back has less mobility compared to the neck and low back. However, when we have increased stiffness in this area, particularly with thoracic extension and thoracic rotation, we can experience referred pain/aching to the shoulder blade area. By improving thoracic spine mobility, we can provide a little more movement freedom to our system, which can help decrease tension and symptoms in the area. Here are two of our favorites for thoracic spine mobility!