If you have achy, breaky shoulders you are not alone!
Our lives cause us to overstretch and strain our upper back muscles often. We work on a line, at a desk, holding our babies, cooking, or other things. All of them require us to hold our arms and hands in front of us for long periods.
The upper back muscles get overstretched and very often complain. They ache. They hurt. They cause headaches. Ouch!
Try these simple movements to strengthen your shoulders and make them feel better.
Let your breastbone lift by pretending there is a hook attached to it pulling you skyward. That will move your head back over your shoulders where it belongs.
Now lift your shoulders up toward your ears, and then let them roll backward. Move them down toward your waist. Lift, roll, move down. And do it again. Try squeezing your shoulder blades together as you bring your shoulders back and down.
Lifting and rolling your shoulders back and down does many good things:
1. It gets circulation going around your shoulders and neck.
2. It loosens the muscles around your shoulder blades.
3. It strengthens the muscles that hold your shoulder blades toward your spine.
4. It gives your poor, overstretched muscles a break!
If it feels good to you to roll your shoulders in a big circle, front to back or back to front, then do it. But, if it feels uncomfortable when you move your shoulders forward, don’t do it. Just lift, roll and lower your shoulders behind you.
Please remember, if you do a movement which your muscles haven’t done in a long time, they may get sore from the new movement. So, start slowly, just do a few, two or three.
As you muscles start to remember what they used to do, and become used to the movement again, you can start to increase the repetitions.
Lift, roll, squeeze your shoulder blades toward your spine, drop. Repeat.
Feels so good to get the muscles moving again!
Ahhhh.
