A Comprehensive Look at How Posture Affects the Shoulder

A Comprehensive Look at How Posture Affects the Shoulder

Shoulder pain is an all-too-common complaint, making routine activities like lifting, typing, and even sleeping difficult. It seems like every week we get a patient who comes to us with shoulder pain related to poor postural habits. 

A lot of people know the old song about how the foot bone is connected to the knee bone (and the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone and so on). In the world of physiotherapy, we call this regional interdependence. This means something in one area of the body is affecting another area. As the song says: it’s all connected. Well, this is definitely true when it comes to the functioning of our shoulder joints. Poor postural habits and prolonged slumped postures put the shoulder in a vulnerable position, making it susceptible to pain or injury. The good news is our therapists at Expert Physio Plus have extensive training in identifying all the factors that are contributing to your shoulder pain and, most importantly, how to resolve them, one by one!

How Posture Impacts the Shoulder

One significant factor contributing to shoulder pain is Upper Crossed Syndrome (UCS). This condition is characterized by postural changes that affect how the muscles of our upper back and shoulder girdle work, which in turn affects the normal movement patterns in the entire upper portion of the body. 

The classic signs of Upper Crossed Syndrome include:

These issues often lead to shoulder pain, limited range of motion, and impaired muscle function. Although the signs are common in a lot of people, not everyone with these signs will have the same symptoms. This is why it is essential to consult one of our physiotherapists to identify your specific needs and design a tailored treatment plan that addresses your situation.

The Role of Physiotherapy in Resolving Your Pain

The first step to resolving your shoulder pain is a comprehensive evaluation. Our physiotherapists will conduct a thorough history and physical exam that includes an assessment of your posture as well as the function of your shoulder blade musculature to identify any obvious changes to muscle activation and movement patterns. 

Based on the assessment, our physiotherapists will design tailored exercise regimens that address not only muscle length and strength but also neuromuscular factors. This could lead to more lasting relief and functional improvement.

Our team uses a functional approach that is rooted in neurology. We consider the interaction between your nervous systems, biomechanics of your spine and shoulder joints, as well as muscle function. This allows us to not only identify and address any imbalances in muscle length and strength but also from neuromuscular factors like muscle recruitment. 

These exercises may include work on your spinal joint mobility and strengthening exercises to correct any postural dysfunctions contributing to your conditions. Our team spends a lot of time educating you about how you are holding and moving your body to ensure you have the tools to train your body in the proper movement patterns that help to correct imbalances and offer lasting relief.

Have you been dealing with a bad case of plantar fasciitis and looking for relief? Do you have persistent pain in a tendon that seems to get worse whether you rest it or try to use it? At Expert Physio Plus, our physiotherapists utilize cutting-edge solutions, like shockwave therapy, that are proven to provide real results!

Shockwave therapy is a physiotherapy modality that sends acoustic shock waves into soft tissue to positively affect the healing process at a cellular level and simultaneously breaks up adhesions that can restrict mobility in tendons or other soft tissues in the body.

These shockwaves will cause movement of the particles in our tissues, resulting in increased blood flow to that area. This, in turn, helps alleviate pain (acute and chronic), improve tissue mobility, and improve the overall healing response.

Contact Expert Physio Plus today to request an appointment and to learn more about our shockwave therapy treatments and how they can help you recover sooner and experience lasting relief!

What Conditions Benefit From Shockwave Therapy?

Shockwave therapy primarily provides pain relief while facilitating blood flow and promoting tissue healing. Research studies have shown this treatment to help various soft tissue disorders (i.e., sprains, strains, and tendinopathy), both acute and chronic conditions.

Our therapists at Expert Physio Plus will conduct a thorough history and physical examination to identify the source of your pain and functional limitations so we can implement the most effective treatment strategies, including shockwave, for your specific injury, ailment, or area of pain.

Some of the more common soft tissue conditions that shockwave therapy can help treat are as follows:

Shockwave therapy can even be applied to joint disorders like osteoarthritis or frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis). This non-invasive treatment is safe and may be the very thing that helps get you over the obstacle standing in your way of finding lasting relief.

Shockwave therapy can aid pain relief and increase blood flow to speed the healing rate and enhance the quality of the repair. At Expert Physio Plus, we are skilled at identifying the most appropriate treatment to successfully treat various conditions so you can get back to doing what matters most to you!