Muscle Tightness In Your Shoulder: How To Fix It
Lacey Causes of Shoulder Tightness
There are quite a number of ways you might find yourself with tight shoulders and most of them are extremely common. Stress, tension, and overuse are big causes of shoulder tightness and are somewhat hard to correct. It can also be caused by poor posture, incorrect sleeping positions, and sitting for extended periods of time. These are relatively easier to correct, but it still takes time for the tightness to alleviate itself.
Easy Treatment Options
Most treatment options require you to slightly change your lifestyle in order to better your general health and get shoulder pain relief. Posture is hard to correct since you need to constantly remind yourself that you need to be sitting a certain way. MASJ can help improve posture with in-person appointments or through the Mobile App. Sleeping positions are hard to get used to when you’ve always slept a certain way. If you can correct these though, you’ll notice that most of your shoulder tightness is gone, but not all of it. Stretches and exercises can help to increase the strength of your shoulders so it’ll be more resistant to the causes of shoulder tightness.
Stretches to Reduce Shoulder Tightness
Wide-legged standing forward bend is a bit complicated but very good for relieving tight shoulders. Stand with your feet wider than hip-distance with your toes facing forward and interlace your hands behind your back while keeping a slight bend in your knees. Hinge at the hips to fold forward, bringing your arms over your head toward the floor and allow your head to hang and your chin to tuck slightly into your chest. Hold the pose for a minute and repeat 2-4 times.
Cow Cat pose is a go-to for a multitude of aches and pains throughout the back and neck areas. Start on your hands and knees, with your hands directly under your shoulders and your knees directly under your hips. Then as you inhale let your belly sink to the floor and lookup. As you exhale, arch your back and look to the floor. Repeat the movement about 15 times.
Reverse Prayer pose is quite simple, but somewhat hard to do on the first try, don’t give up! You can do this pose while sitting or standing and either way you will bring your hands behind your back with the backs of your hands facing each other while your fingers are facing down. Then flip your hands in the other direction so your fingers are facing up and turn your palms to face each other. Press your palms together and slightly draw your elbows back. Hold the pose for 30 seconds and repeat it about 5 times.