Do you suffer from neck or shoulder pain? It’s a common problem that can be caused by many things, including poor posture or muscle dysfunction.

However, one constant that’s often involved in these issues is the serratus anterior muscle.

The serratus anterior muscle moves the shoulder blade when we reach forward. When it’s not functioning correctly, it can cause symptoms such as winging of the shoulder blade, pain in the neck or shoulder, weakness when lifting weights, a clicky or clunky shoulder, and numbness or tingling down the arm.

If you have any of these symptoms, don’t worry; this article will teach you how to self-assess and retrain this muscle to fix your shoulder girdle and deload all those angry tissues. 

Good posture is crucial for a healthy serratus anterior muscle, and luckily there are two easy ways to set yourself up for success:

Opening up the chest to deload the internal shoulder rotators and mobilizing the mid back to allow it to naturally stack into a more upright position known as thoracic extension mobilization. 

A good stretch to open up the chest is to lean toward the corner of a room with your elbows and wrists touching the wall, and a good mobilization exercise for your thoracic spine is foam rolling or doing wall angels exercises against the wall. 

It should take about three weeks of consistently doing these exercises to begin seeing a difference however, depending on the severity, it could take up to 8. If this injury has been present for a long time, you may have developed secondary issues such as nerve entrapment which could hamper progress and requires professional help. 

At Elite Health and Performance, our therapists treat this injury daily and would love to help you return to peak performance. 

If you are ready to experience the best physiotherapy services in Newstead, Bowen Hills, New Farm, and Tenerife, contact us today to schedule a consultation and begin fixing your shoulder, stopping your pain and performing at your best or see click these physio bowen hills and brisbane physio to know more about our services.