The Answer
Increase the strength and endurance of your rhomboid muscles. These are your scapula retractor muscles.
The Exercise
Lie face down with your forehead resting on the floor. Place your hands together on the back of your neck, so that your elbows are pointing outward.
Lift both of your elbows up as high as you can while keeping your forehead down on the ground.
The Burn
You should feel your shoulder blades moving (or trying to move) towards the middle of your upper back. You should feel the muscles on the inside of your shoulder blade working hard.
The Duration
Hold for 5 seconds.
The Repetitions
Repeat 12 times.
Do 3 sets of this exercise, with 1 minute of rest in between each set.
But… Why?
This exercise is particularly important for people who engage in swimming, bodybuilding, prolonged sitting or who have a forward shoulder posture
The Area
Doing this simple exercise everyday will improve the stability in your shoulder and the postute in your shoulder blade.
The Relief
This exercise will relieve pain in your upper back, upper chest, upper arm and shoulder.
The Injuries
The injuries which would be helped by this stretch include:
The Relaxation
All of the exercises in this program are designed to facilitate stress relief, relaxation and meditation if desired. Take this you-time to allow yourself to unwind while taking long, slow deep breaths throughout the exercise.
The Program
This exercise is part of my daily thirty minute Flexibility & Posture program. Its a balanced, light program which I have designed on the back of successfully prescribing exercises for thousands of patients so far.
You will be able to access the full program here on November 25th 2019.
Sean Flynn Physiotherapy 