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Pain in the inferior angle of the shoulder blade. Part 1

Got pain in the lower part of your shoulder blade? You may be barking up the wrong tree if your looking for a massage in that area to fix it. 
This is a complaint I see mostly in throwers, fighters, or people who like to bench a lot. This pain can be caused by a large number of issues but we will try to limit it to just a few for the sake of this blog. 
     The first thing you need to do is find the source of the pain. 
1) For most people it can be the over use and tightness of their pec muscles. The pec minor can be tight, causing it to pull on the top of your shoulder blade aka scapula. This can cause a seesaw effect and force the bottom of the scapula to poke out. This is also known as a winging scapula. When this pulling occurs, the muscles in the area of the inferior angle of he scapula will set off a pain signal because they are being over pulled and are trying to pull the scapula back in place. One way to loosen this pec muscle is to take a lacrosse ball or baseball and roll it under your collar bone and around the whole chest muscle. This will help to loosen the pec and relieve some of the pressure you will feel. 
2) Overactive internal rotators of the shoulder (subscapularis muscle) Can also cause this pain. There is a muscle that sits under the shoulder blade and it causes your shoulder to rotate inward. If this muscle is tight, it can cause the same seesaw effect as seen in example 1.  This is a hard muscle to reach, so you may need a therapist or someone who is knowledgable in soft tissue to get to this muscle. You can also do external rotation exercises with bands to help balance out the pull between the internal and external rotation muscles. 
3) Improper breathing can also be the cause of your pain. People often have shallow breathing, meaning they do not use their diaphragm to breath. They are what we call, chest breathers. This style of breathing will cause the same issues seen in example 1 because the pec minor is used in breathing. One way to counter this is to practice deep belly breathing. This will help to relax the pec minor, so it will not be overused. 
4) Weak or underactive serratus anterior muscle. The serratus anterior helps to keep the scapula down and against the body.  It is a stabilizer and protractor of the scapula. If this muscle is not doing its job, it will not protect the scapula and it will allow it to wing out. There are many exercises you can do to help activate this muscle. We do lots of band exercises for this as well as scapula push ups (protraction/ retraction in a prone position) 

We will end this blog here and call it part 1. There are a few more reasons for the pain in the bottom angle of the shoulder blade but we will save the others for part 2. If there are any questions so far, please feel free to email flofitness@gmail.com

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