Episode 46 - The Shoulder Episode: Exploring the Truth About How You Move This Complex Joint System

Most shoulder issues aren’t about strength or flexibility… they’re about organization.

In this episode of Three Questions, I dig into the shoulder as the complex joint system it actually is, not just a ball-and-socket problem to stretch, strengthen, or “fix.” We’ll explore why the shoulder is really four joints working together, how your spine and lower body influence shoulder mechanics, and why most shoulder pain sticks around when we focus on the wrong things.

In This Episode You’ll Hear:

• Why the shoulder is a four-joint system—and which joints are often overlooked
• How upper body instability can limit squats, lunges, and lower body strength
• Simple ways to assess whether your spine is stabilizing or stealing motion from your shoulders

This episode is part anatomy, part nervous system reality check, and part invitation to stop micromanaging movement and start giving your brain better information.

Whether you’re a movement professional, a Pilates teacher, or someone frustrated by lingering shoulder pain, this episode will help you rethink how the shoulder actually works and where meaningful change really starts.

Links & Resources For This Episode:
Episode 32: Unfreezing the Narrative: Rethinking Frozen Shoulder
Episode 45: The Neck Pain Episode: Let’s Talk About What You Might Be Missing
Find a Neuro Studio Teacher Near You
Connect with me on Instagram
Connect with me on Threads

Transcript

Meghann Koppele Duffy: Welcome to Three Questions where critical thinking is king, and my opinions and research are only here to support your learning and deeper understanding. Hey, I'm your host Meghann, and I'm so honored you clicked on Three Questions today so we can talk about the shoulder. Now, I did an episode last week, maybe the week before.

I have very bad concept of time. About the neck, and I loved all the follow up questions, so I will do a follow up on that episode. But I get so many questions about the shoulder from movement professionals and people who are not movement professionals. So I'm gonna try to talk to you both today 'cause it's important.

Now, question one, did you know that the shoulder or what we should be calling the shoulder complex shoulder girdle. Is actually made up of four joints and knowing that, or maybe not knowing that, could you be paying attention to the wrong one? So let's say you've got no anatomy background. I just kind of had this conversation with my mother yesterday.

So the shoulder is pretty complex, but we all think of the shoulder as kind of the ball in socket. Okay? So that arm bone where it plugs right in. Yes, that is part of the shoulder and that is the most mobile joint in your body. It's called your glenohumeral joint, but there are three other joints. And now if you're a movement professional, you might be like, yes, Meghann, we know that wonderful.

However, oftentimes we get over focused on some of the smaller joints or the joints that are kind of more complex. 'cause there's more to get into about it. But we miss the obvious. And knowing that the glenohumeral is the most mobile joint in the body, what I wanna bring to everybody's attention, it's the most mobile joint in the body that nobody is using.

I remember I was having a talk with a friend who's a physical therapist, and she was like, explain to me this four quadrant stability model you created. Why? And I'm like, well, I kind of like never really thought about it. And I was like, and these words came directly out of my mouth. Because they're the four most mobile joints in the body.

Nobody's using correctly, and nobody's mapping them correctly. And she's like, well, that makes a lot more sense than all that complex jargon you were talking about before. And right at that point, whether you're someone with anatomy background or not, sometimes we overcomplicate things without kinda opening up the hood and, you know, making sure there's washer fluid in the car or there's gas in the engine.

Sometimes we overlook the obvious. So let's go to those four joints. So real quick anatomy lesson, I want everybody to put their right hand right on their sternum, kind of, or some people call it their breast bone. Now, right there on either side, you've got these clavicles or what most people kind of call their collar bone.

So I want you to feel that breastbone and that collarbone and they kind of attach, and there's one on each side. So that's our Sterno particular joint. Where our sternum, that's what you guys are calling the breastbone, meets the clavicle and you can feel it on either side and just kind of rub there. And you don't need to know much about anything except is there a lot of muscles around it?

Does there feel a lot of tension around it? And right now just move your arm a little bit in small ranges of emotion. Do you feel a little bit of give there? Good. You should. Now, it's super interesting. This is not a very mobile joint in the body. Which is kind of good. It's kind of built for stability because think about it, what's kind of the co most common injury?

Uh, you hear it more on kids, but it, you know, it can happen at any age. A broken collarbone. So the collarbones almost, uh, designed to break. 'cause think about it, if that's stern avular, joint dislocated located, that could be pretty dangerous. There's some important real estate right around our neck there.

So think if your kid breaks his collarbone and you're all upset. Well. It's a good thing it broke and did not dislocate at the sternoclavicular joint. So now let's keep going. Take your hand along your collarbone and bring it all the way as far as it can go, and you might be like, okay, there was a space, and then I jumped over to another bone.

Go back, go back, go back. Feel that length of your clavicle. Now if you take your hand and kind of wrap it on the top of your shoulder, so if you're watching me on YouTube, you can see me. But if you're not think like almost, um, if you're American, there was like a pledge of allegiance. Like you bring your right hand across your, your heart's not that far over, but you know what I mean.

Take your fingers, wrap it around your shoulder and see if you can kind of feel what is a part of your scapula or your shoulder blade. So you'll feel that on the back. And then you should feel your collarbone or clavicle on the front. So we got a back, we got a front, we got a scapula on the back, clavicle on the front.

And I always kind of describe these and if you bring your hand towards where you think your shoulder is, it kind of comes to a point. And I was originally born in New York, so although I'm a, I guess a new Jerseyan, I still kind of identify as a New Yorker. I think of the Flatiron building. And if you don't know what I mean, Google it, the Flatiron building, it kind of comes at a point and looks like a.

Flat iron. So I always picture that. So I've got my clavicle and scapula on the back and they come to a point on the side. Now the scapula is odd shaped and we're not gonna get into that too much. 'cause this is not an anatomy lesson, but that scapula's got a little hook. Okay? It's called our acromium process kind of reaches over and that's where the clavicle.

Attaches to the scapula, and a lot of times people will, have you ever heard a separated shoulder? Anybody hear of that injury? That's where that happens at that acromium paricular joint. So whoever named these joints very helpful. It's where the Acromium process meets the clavicle. Easy to remember, and you can kind of F that and move your finger around.

Now again, this joint should move. Not a ton. But here's where things get dicey. Then I want everybody to grab kind of what's called your humeral head. It's the top of your arm bone. Kind of reach it across. Try to grab that arm bone. That's what everybody thinks the shoulder joint is just that ball and socket, but kind of visualize that, that bone, and I always think if you've ever seen an x-ray, there's all these white bones and black space.

So we want space around the bones. We don't want bones jamming into each other. Okay, it can lead to arthritis, which we have an episode of that coming up. So get excited. Anyway, so I want you to visualize that arm bone and some black space all around it. That's your glenohumeral. That's what we think when we think traditionally shoulder.

So now touch approximately where you might think your acromioclavicular is. Like go to the end of your clavicle and then think about that ball and socket. Touch it. Do you notice how close those two joints are? They're very close together. So what happens? We get some brain mapping issues. So our brain sometimes thinks we're moving the glenohumeral, but actually over mobilizes, acromioclavicular and vice versa.

This is why rotator cuff tears often happen and they often happen at that area. There's one of your rotator cuff muscles, again, four muscles that moves just your arm out to the side a little bit. Your supraspinatus. That often gets freed on that acromium process because of shoulder mechanic issues. All right, we got really technical for a minute, so we got a joint that attaches our clavicle to our sternum, a joint that attaches our clavicle at the other end to the shoulder blade.

Then we've got a arm bone. There's three of 'em that attach, but the big one at the top, that's one attaches in and it's almost floating in there. And there's a little cup on the scapula that creates a place for it. And then there's all these muscles and tendons, and their job is to keep that arm bone your humerus crated in the joint.

What does that mean? Very simply, think about that x-ray. Think we don't want any white touching on any other white, so as the arms got going up over your head, bring your arm over your head now. So think about where that ball is that used to be facing upward. It's now facing down. We wanna make sure there's still black space all around that bone.

Okay, now moving on to the last one. Think right now everybody shrugged their shoulders up and down. Can you feel your shoulder blades going up and down on your back? Also, when we bring our arm out to the side and up over our head, something you might not realize is our shoulder blades actually upwardly rotate and they do this so we can bring our arm up over our head.

It. Think about your legs. I want everybody to put their hand kind of down their pants and touch their sacrum. There's a joint down there where our sacrum touches each side of our pelvis. It's called our SI joint. That allows the pelvis not to rotate up too much, which is why most of us cannot get our leg our foot straight up to the ceiling.

Dancers can, but that's a different story. A lot of hypermobility involved and a lot of joints working together. So just imagine between your shoulder blades right now. Take, bring your shoulder blades as close together as they can, and imagine there was another bone there holding them there. Don't let your shoulder blades move at all and try to move your arm.

You kind of can't. So all these four joints are so important. So you might be thinking right now, Meg, I don't know which joint is affected. I've got a lot of shoulder pain. Don't worry, this is not diagnosing you. What I want you to think about is say if the ball and socket really hurts, maybe rub that sternal avular.

If that ball and socket hurts, what I want you to do, put your hand on it. Don't let it move, and I want you to turn your palm up and down, but don't let the arm bone under your hand move. We're moving the elbow joint below it. Now last but not least, keep that arm kind of in your hand and try to shrug your whole shoulder girdle up.

Think like you're a football player. But while you're doing this, don't let your shoulder that you're touching, push up into your hand. See if you can get more of the shoulder blades to lift, not just jamming that arm bone up. Okay. Lot of brainy shit. Don't worry about it. Let it go. What I want you to ask yourself is, what part of my shoulder hurts?

Let me put my hand there. Let me try to move other parts below it and above it without that pain occurring. Also, hear me out. Lot of times when something hurts, we wanna rub and stretch it more. Leave it alone. That's our brain indicating that pattern, that movement we're doing is no longer good. It's no longer serving us.

Leave it alone. See if you can maintain the position and the pressure and try to move other joints. Show your brain. We can invite other people to the party. Okay, very simplistic version, but question one is gonna help us as we explore question two and three. If you are utterly confused about your shoulders, don't worry.

Go see a physical therapist, reach out to me. I can find someone near you, a movement person that can help you sort this out. But now that you know the shoulder's a lot more complex, maybe we should give it the respect it deserves. Okay, so let's move on to question two. Now, if you were totally like too many words, too many joints, Meg, I got you.

This question's gonna be a little less technical. What I want you to think about is when you're training lower body, doing your squats, your lunges, your calf raises, um, I don't know why those are the only three lower body exercise I can think of. Bridging, um, hip hinges. You know, you get it. What is going on in your upper body?

Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever s assessed it? Take a moment. You're like, no, I'm focused on my lower body. I'm not mad at that. Yes, and everything's attached. Now, remember I mentioned that glenohumeral that ball and socket is the most mobile joint in the body. Yeah, but it can be real problematic because if we're not, if our glenohumeral cannot stabilize reflexively meaning not that we have to tell it to do something, that it reflexively responds.

We can have kind of a danger signal in our brain. Our brain doesn't like problems and instabilities, it kind of locks stuff down. You know, I, I did a episode on frozen shoulder, and I see this a lot Prior to that frozen shoulder, that shoulder was not stabilizing and it wasn't participating with the rest of the body, or people had instabilities elsewhere.

So that the brain was really protecting that joint. It was a safety issue. You can agree or disagree with your brain's reasoning for safety issue, but it's there for a reason. Kinda repeated myself there, and it's our job to tell the brain, no, we good. It's okay. So how do we do this? Now I'm gonna talk to you like you're not a movement professional here, because I don't want you to overthink this.

I want you, the next time you're gonna squat, grab two dumbbells. Okay. I want you to hold those dumbbells and I just want you to gently touch them to your clavicles. Now, if that hurts, that would indicate your hands are not strong enough and shoulders to hold those weights. You should be able to have a gentle touch on your clavicles with those weights.

And then I just want you to do a squat or a lunge. That's all I want you to do, and I want you to notice, huh? When I squat down. It's almost like the weights aren't touching my clavicles anymore, and then when I stand up, they're really pushing into my clavicles. Well, why is that happening? That is indicating a part of our upper quadrant, as I call it, or shoulder girdle is not stabilizing.

When we're doing a squat, we want them to stabilize. This always happens. I'll have someone who can't get deep in a squat. We just get their upper quadrant to stabilize and they're like. Of butt to grass all the way down in the squat and go, what the heck just happened? So what I want you to do is kind of gotta pick your poison here.

Sometimes I'll say to people, okay, go to where you feel the clavicles touching the weights the most. So if that's at the top, cool. As you squat down, do not change the pressure between your clavicles and the weights. Your body's gonna have to adjust. Let it adjust. Or you can go to the bottom of your range of motion, notice how the weights are resting or not resting on the clavicles.

And then as you come up through the range of motion, do not let the clavicles push up into the weights or shift there. This is what I want you to observe. That is not going to give you any answers, except recognizing, oh shit. I'm mobilizing my upper quadrant when I want it to stabilize. And this is hard, guys, because let me tell you, it's usually not this huge, giant movement.

It's often super subtle, but you don't notice the subtleness because it's so subtle. So we've gotta bring attention to your brain. That's how we create change. Me telling you don't drop your shoulders or don't lift your shoulders, honestly. It's a waste. You're getting an auditory cue that means nothing to your brain.

You hear them, you're not deaf, but your brain is like, okay, I get it, but your brain doesn't feel what you're doing. Okay? Another way you can test this is say you don't wanna hold weights. You can make Ls. Let's just do one hand. Make an L with your right hand and touch your clavicle and your chin or your sternum, that breastbone in your chin.

Now some people like to focus on pressure at their fingers. Some people like to focus on distance. Whatever the case, I want you to do your swat and your lunge and notice what's changing. I remember the first time I taught this in a workshop, I did it and I was like, whoa. When I squat, I really mobilized my neck.

Not a ton, but enough. And when my chin was on my finger, as soon as I squat, my chin wanted to come off my finger. So I'm not squatting to improve the extension of my neck. But if I extend my neck, I'm gonna lose the stability and potentially mobility later in my spine that I needed for a full squat. We don't micromanage.

We give our brain information and do the movement. So when you squat or lunge, try to not change the pressure or distance between your chin, whatever part of your head and your shoulder girdle you're touching. You need to touch the sternum, the clavicle, or your glenohumeral. So the the arm bone, if you're gonna do glenohumeral, I've got my elbow out to the side, I'm touching my ear and my arm bone.

Now what is the purpose of this? Well, if we're moving our spine. This is going to tell us if we're moving our shoulder girdle, this is going to tell us. And just don't anticipate an error. Wait for it. If you feel your head coming away from your finger, your finger spreading more, just change it there and keep it moving.

Keep in mind we're bringing awareness to what the upper body is doing. When we're moving the lower body, we're not micromanaging it. Let your brain make the choice. And if you cannot, if you're like, I can't even move. That's not always a bad thing. That's going to indicate that your cerebellum or other parts of your brain are like, we don't have any other options.

This is it. And this is why people get into chronic pain. They're left with one option. So if you're a movement pro and this happens to your client, don't freak out. Always think, add, don't subtract. They don't have any other patterns, so we've gotta teach their brain that pattern. Cool. So when you're doing your lower body, let your lower body do its thing.

Check and see what your upper body and spine is doing to best support the lower body. Okay? Now one thing before I go on to question three, A common cue, especially with kettlebell swings and weight training, I'll hear it. I think they'll say, pack the lats shoulder blades down in Pilates. I'll hit shoulder blades down.

Keep in mind, I. I wasn't always like this, but I love when people like shame, other teachers. I can't believe you said that. Shut up. You probably said it too. Now. One time somebody was really elevating their shoulder girdle too much. Now were they actually elevating their shoulder girdle or were they mobilizing their spine?

I don't know. I wasn't there. What they should have done instead of say shoulders down, they should have given that person sensory feedback so the shoulders would not elevate. And this is also why your Pilate teacher movement person is always telling you, shoulders down. Your brain doesn't realize when it lifts the shoulders up.

We need to build awareness. A great trick for that is taking its towel around your neck, securing it with a hair tie. Don't change the pressure on the towel. Almost think like it's a neck brace. Okay, for another conversation. Now, why does packing the lats and shoulder blades down work? Well, it creates false sense of security for the brain, but you've gotta get it at the right timing and right position.

And what pisses me off about that cue, if you're doing a kettlebell swing, your lat is involved. Okay? If you are packing your shoulder girdle down, it's inhibiting from the lat to do its job. Okay, the lat, when your arms move away from your body has to lengthen, not shorten when it comes back in. Now the lat is very important.

Now, I could debate this because you can butcher a stake however you want it. So like we have decided muscles or these names, it's all connected. But if we look at the lat, it's really the only muscle as we describe muscles that attaches the lower body to the upper body. There is an origin at the top of your pelvis, your ileum.

There's an origin at what's called your thoracolumbar fascia, like your lower back. That's where sometimes it gets tight and icky. There's an at the spot, it grabs your shoulder blade and then inserts on your humerus, your arm bone. So our upper quadrant is directly going to affect our glute. So if you have glute amnesia, which is not even a thing.

It happens because of poor sensory input. Most people who aren't using their glutes don't need to because they either kind of pack their lats too much or lift, and they're creating tension through a fascial system. You don't need your glutes to do that movement. Okay? Now the problem is if we don't utilize those gluteal muscles, they can become neurologically.

We can get more tight. Okay? We could argue this, if you still wanna pack your lats, fine, but you are inhibiting the lat from doing its job. You are basically dictating what the body does. And I don't, this is why a lot of people get injured, okay? You can do a certain movement, lift a certain load. So if you've gotta lift a heavy load, give your brain all the tricks it can do to lift, to, to move that load.

But athletes, people moving day to day. What happens is if their body overt, rotates too fast and the lat can't give weight, it's going to stretch the thora clumber fascia or stretch the shoulder, and the brain's gonna create a protective response. This is why athletes are getting pulled. Um, what are the, um, obliques, brain fart there pulled obliques where, you know, we're seeing more injuries because in the gym you are teaching people to react to a specific situation.

It good trainers and most of the people listening to this podcast, you guys aren't the problem, but I need you to help me because I can't be screaming this around to, you know, nobody to the, uh, abyss Good trainers teach their clients how to respond no matter the situation. Weird foot positions, weird arm positions, and get the body to respond efficiently.

That's what protects athletes because if I fall down in a weird place, you can't replicate that fall down. I'm gonna teach you how to fall. The way to teach people how to fall is make sure that they've got motor control of those positions, motor control of their ankle out to the side. The ankle's designed to roll.

I'm getting off topic here. Let's get back to pulling the shoulder girdle down. Please don't think I want shoulder girdles up in ears. I want shoulder girdles to reflexively respond as appropriate to maintain the tensegrity through the body. Huh, fancy. Stay with me. What do I mean? You might have to elevate your shoulder girdle just a little bit to create that tension throughout the diagonals that connect to the glutes.

You might have to lower your shoulder blades to help maintain that tensegrity. Not take it away, and not pull it too tight, and instead of micromanaging this. To me, I've been doing this for now 25 years. I've seen all these phases. I've done all these phases. I've had the injuries, I've done the things, and I guarantee in 20 more years I might be saying something different.

Instead of giving cues in specific situations, help people's brain respond. Now, my non-professionals, now that I'm off the soapbox, if your teachers keep giving you specific cues, like shoulders down, shoulders down, shoulders down. I want you to go to a unilateral move. So say you're doing like a bilateral row, right?

Pulling both elbows behind you, and they're like, Meg, keep your shoulders down. I want you to do a unilateral, so one hand. So let's reach our left arm in front of us and just drive our elbow back, okay? Now what I want you to do right here is take your right hand and touch your clavicle, your sternum, or your right shoulder.

With one thumb and then reach your pointer finger to a spot on your face. So I'm gonna do my right clavicle and the right side of my jaw, and I'm just gonna move my left arm forward and back. I don't want you to micromanage that left arm automatically. I can even see it in the camera. I'm not lifting my shoulder girdle as much, but I do notice some stuff going on.

So what if you maintain the distance between your fingers? As you move your left arm, it might slow you down. It might speed you up. Notice the adjustments. I'm just bringing awareness and you might be thinking, Meg, why'd you have me touch the right shoulder when I'm moving the left? Because question one, we got four shoulder joints micromanaging each one of them.

That's acting like you would Jedi. If you're a Jedi, more power to you. I don't know any Jedi. So we don't control motor output. We control sensory input, which changes motor output. So I'm giving you sensory information on your right side, which should stabilize while you're moving your left. And by just bringing that information to your brain, let your brain make the micro adjustments and that's gonna change the motor output on your left.

So anytime you hear a cue more than once, I want you to think to yourself. My brain has no idea that I'm doing this. Mistake. Your ears know because they keep telling you. And don't be mad at your teacher. They are taking the time to notice this alignment error and want to help you work as a team. Say, what are you seeing while I'm seeing the back of your shoulder blade come up?

Okay. Can you touch the back of your shoulder blade in the back of your head? Try to do the movement and say, oh, I feel that. Can I do it without that happening? Be curious. And my movement pros, people aren't deaf. They're trying to do their best. They're not ignoring you. They just think they are doing what you are saying.

Awareness. You seeing something is not the same as their brain. Having awareness. They're making the error. I know we've all been there. You don't think I've repeated a cue like a hundred times. My favorite was a client. Oh my God, he was so funny. Um, his name is slipping my mind right now. Damn it. Anyway, I said to him, Hey, put your foot on the chair, like a bird on a perch.

And he's like, what? I was like, like a bird on a perch? And he's like, huh, like a bird on a perch. And I kept like moving my body and hand a bird on a perch. And he was like, Meg Thomas, shout out Thomas. He was like, Meg, I'm not deaf. I have no idea what you mean. And I was like, oh, just put your foot like this and showed him.

He's like, thanks. And it was just a funny moment where I'm like, oh, sorry. So think about that. Parents. We do it all the time. Everybody does it. It's fine. We're doing our best. So let's get to question three, because I already notice I am very close to 30 minutes. Maybe I'm there already. Whatever. It'll be worth it.

Okay, we talked about there's four joints of the shoulder. Okay, we get that now. Number two, we also know, shit, my upper body matters when I'm doing lower body exercises. And now number three, have you ever noticed what your spine is doing when you're moving your shoulders? Now, this might surprise you. I can speak from experience.

I have traveled around the world teaching. I have touched some of the best movers, some of the best teachers, and most people think their spine is stabilizing when it's not. I was also one of these people, so rather than me lecturing you, I'm gonna talk, you soothe through some things and ways to test it.

So first thing we're gonna do, I want everybody to lift their right arm up as high as they can, pain-free. Now, reach down. On your right side and see if you can find one of your ribs and then reach down and touch your pelvis. So I always like to use my thumb and pointer. You can use thumb and middle.

Notice the distance between that rib and your pelvis. Just notice. And now I want you to put your arm down. What happened? Don't think, just lift your arm up, put it down. When I lift my arm up, my rib lifts a little bit, and when I put my arm down, it lowers a little bit. Now, well, I don't want you to think one way or is correct because some of you might, your ribs might be in the best position when your arm is up.

Some of you might be better when your arm is down or halfway. I can't see you, so I'm gonna teach it to you both ways, and you decide, let's go to where, when our arm is up, because our brain thinks it's safe enough. So let's listen to our brain. Bring your right arm up. Feel where your rib and your pelvis is.

Okay, so when they say hands on hips, that's the bone I'm talking about. Can you try to lower your arm without that rib collapsing on your pelvis? Now, what do you notice when you lift your arm? Oh, my ribs aren't moving anymore. So if this actually feels really good, well, you were slouching before. Now you're in a better position where your spine can stabilize.

If this feels terrible to you, don't worry. I got you now. Rest, shake it all out. Now let's do the other arm. Now, if you ha, if you liked what you did on that arm, do your other arm. If you hated it, stay on this arm with your arm down. Notice the distance between your ribs and your pelvis. Just pick a spot.

It doesn't matter. Now lift your arm without your ribs shifting forward, back, left, right on the ribs. Notice how that feels. And lower and lift the arm without changing them. How does that feel? So I am using your ribs and pelvis. If your ribs are moving down or up, that's going to indicate there's mobility in your spine.

It could be in your lower thorac, it could also be in your upper lumbar. Okay. If your pelvis was moving a lot, again, most likely if you're sitting, it's your lumbar spine. I'm, I doubt anybody was actually moving at their hip joint there. I would be impressed if you were. So we didn't know what we didn't know.

In an ideal world, a perfect arm situation. Think about our ribs. They're real three dimensional. We're not flat on our back, so our ribs kind of come out in our back, okay? And it's this nice, beautiful, what's called kyphosis. And you might be like, isn't kyphosis bad? Yeah, excessive kyphosis is bad, but we should have what's called lower doses in our neck.

So touch your neck, see how it angles in. And then our mid-back art thoracic goes the opposite way. Then our lower back is angled in and our sacrum angles out. And what's cool about the thoracic and sacral, those develop in utero. So we always have those curves and are cervical and develop as babies look around.

That's why tummy time's so important. Um, you know, kids develop by looking around different lights, breastfeeding. There's different ways to really establish. Good cervical position, and the lumbar really doesn't fully develop until kids walk, which is why when kids walk for the first time, they look like they might have drank too much or they tend to walk on their toes.

They almost kind of have what's called foot drop because they can't fully mobilize their ankle yet. They don't have the hip and spinal control yet. So it's kind of pretty cool how we develop. Okay, so we want our spine to stabilize in those curves. Now, this is not about the different spinal curves because sometimes we get into bad curves, especially if you have scoliosis.

So keep in mind, we want our spine to stabilize when we move our arms. So go back to that kyphosis in the back. That beautiful roundness, not excessive. That's where our shoulder blades live. So try to extend your spine forward, like real. Stick out your chest and butt. Notice how our movement feels different.

Because that fourth joint of the shoulder, the scapular thoracic, can't glide on our ribs like it's designed now. Really kind of round your back, maybe more than you think, and notice how that feels when you move your arm. Sometimes it feels better when we're rounded, then we're extended. So just keep that in mind.

So another thing we can do is I want everybody to touch the back of their neck. Just rub the back of your neck from kind of your hairline to as low as you can. Now I call it playing the piano. So I'm gonna separate my four fingers and kind of place them in between the bones, I feel. Now I want you to take your right arm kind of up, and I want you to like, you're gonna reach something, so like reach your arm across.

Don't do it anyway. Just like you're trying to reach and touch someone in front of you. Do you feel that spine moving? Some of you are gonna really mobilize at your. Um, cervical your neck. Some might be more at your thoracic, some might be lumbar. So if you felt no movement, put your hand down at your lower back and move your arm and see if you feel anything.

Now, keep in mind, it's not wrong to move your spine. I want you to be able to rotate your spine and reach. However, we also need our entire shoulder girdle, so stay with me. We need the arm bone and the clavicle and scapula to glide forward and back without the spine moving. You might have heard your teachers maybe say protract and retract.

That's kind of pulling your shoulder blades together and apart. Most people move their spine during that. It's hard. So what I want everybody to do is touch the spot that was moving the most. And then try to move your arm without that spot moving. Hmm. What does Meghann mean? Let me help. I like to keep the heel in my hand against my jaw so I can say when I reach my arm on kind of a diagonal or forward, I don't want my neck to move away from my jaw.

Other people think, don't change the pressure. Or other people might think, catch your elbow in your peripheral vision and when you reach, don't let your spine move away from that elbow in your peripheral vision. And you're gonna notice your arm moves a lot less, right? So if any of those drills just created a shift in your body, add that into your day.

And the one we just did with the neck, I give all my clients this. I make them stand in their doorway and use kind of the, what is it? The thing that goes around the door? No, not the door hinge. What's the, like almost, I don't know what the word is, the frame of the door. Okay. I could use my ladder here. So what you would do is just bring your spine against just a spot on the door.

And we're looking for mid back here, not neck and notice. Have that, um, door frame on one side of your spine. And then notice when you reach your arm, does your spine move towards that doorframe or away? I always like to have the doorframe, so if I'm moving my right arm, my spine is moving to the right, I'm gonna have the doorframe on the right side of my spine, and then all I'm gonna do is just move my arm without my spine pushing into the doorframe.

It's gonna give my brain sensory information to stabilize my spine. Remember, it's not a big range of motion. It. That's gonna tell my brain, yo, we got a whole shoulder girdle we can use. Let's not over mobilize the spine. Okay? Now, if you're listening to this and you're like, I didn't catch any of that, flag this episode, watch it on YouTube so you can see what I'm doing and help a brother out subscribe.

Okay. I love that you guys are g like, I'd rather have your feedback any day than have a million subscribers. I don't care. But gimme a sub, subscribe, share it with your friends. Help uh, me spread the word on this podcast and then do it again and kind of pause me so you can revisit. And if you have any other questions about these, please do not hesitate to ask.

So to wrap a bow around this episode. The shoulder is complex. There's four joints and there's a spine and a lower body that are going to factor in. So without getting too complicated, before we fix all these little parts, let's cha, let's chase those low hanging fruit and fix them. First, let's make sure when you're moving your lower body, your upper body can stabilize and vice versa.

When you're moving your upper body, see what your lower body's doing. Yeah, what's happening at your feet? What's happening at your hips? And make sure your spine is able to stabilize when you are trying to isolate or move your shoulder girdle and vice versa. Make sure when you're moving your spine, your shoulder girdle can stabilize.

They've got to work together, but our brain needs to know that they're separate things. Just digging in to those two things I can almost guarantee if you're having shoulder pain, it will disappear. If you're having shoulder pain, I want you to notice when the pain is the worst. What are you doing, what position your body's in, and I want you to figure out what position your body's in, when the pain is the be.

It's not even there. Start there. Start getting curious. Start asking questions and please put your teacher through the paces just like I would expect you to do to me. Don't just let us bark orders at you. Make sure we are giving the awareness to your brain so you can actually make a lasting change. So thank you so much for digging into this episode for my non-movement people.

Sorry that I got super technical for my movement people. I hope you got some tidbits and some ideas of how to better communicate this to our clients because when we're not getting results, sometimes it's not the technique, it's just a breakdown in communication. Thanks guys. I'll see you next time.