How to Fix Upper Back / Rhomboid Pain for GOOD (4 Effective Exercises)

if you've got upper back or rhomboid pain which is right in this area here watch this video to learn the three most common root causes of this pain and four unique exercises to fix this pain for good [Music] hey it's coachy from Precision movement and today we're going to talk about upper back and or rhomboid pin and we're going to talk about some very common root causes and we're going to go through four new and unique exercises that will help you to eliminate the rhomboid pin by addressing the root causes so if you like learning why you do things and learning new and unique exercises make sure you subscribe to the channel turn on the bell for notifications so that we can stay connected root causes why do we get rhomboid pain which is pain right in this area the muscles right in here number one can you fill in the blank there this is the levator scap or levator scapulae muscle the levator scapula muscle runs from the head the skull bone right down and inserts into the scapula and as the name implies it elevates the scapula but oftentimes when it's short and tight when we have poor posture like that it can become weak it can become stiff and restricted and when that happens the rhomboids can try to compensate for that levator scap that is not working properly and I found a study that really Illustrated this well the study was titled levator scapula and rhomboid minor are united and it was published in 2022 in the journal annals of anatomy that's not anals of anatomy you dirty dogs in this study the researchers dissected cadavers that's dead bodies and they found that the rhomboid minor and levator scapula muscles are interconnected and enclosed by connectives that's connective tissue like fascia as you can see here with both muscles having a similar line of action and inserting into the scapula if one of those muscles isn't working like the levator scapula the rhomboid is in the best position to compensate resulting in overuse of the rhomboid and pain and trigger points so that's the first potential root cause the second is one of my favorite muscles the serratus anterior this radius anterior is often known as the boxer's muscle because it does protraction of the scapula but one function that I think is more important than protraction and especially implicated when people have shoulder pain is posterior tilt of the scapula so this my right hand is my right scapula posterior tilt is like that if I had a cup of water on top of the scapula posterior tilt would be dumping the water behind me anterior tilt would be dumping the water in front of me so posterior tilt of the scapula provides scapular stability whenever you're doing any arm movements lifting something up overhead doing a tennis serve whatever you're doing with your arms and your shoulders the serratus anterior muscle must be functioning properly to keep good alignment of the scapula so that the head of the humerus that upper arm bone can move around without pinching anything if the serratus anterior isn't working well then because of the anatomy and the close relationship between the rhomboid and the serratus you can see here in this image that they're right beside each other and they basically insert they both insert right on this medial border of the scapula if the serratus anterior isn't working well the rhomboid can again just like for the levator scap try to compensate so we got to make sure the serratus anterior is working properly finally number three what is this this is thoracic spine if your thoracic spine is stiff and you're in really poor posture and you can't get out of it because those deep muscles aren't working then that can create upper back or rhomboid pain you might get trigger points in those muscles and the reason why is because number one those muscles will be lengthened the rhomboids will be lengthened so they'll be stretched and over time if they're stretched all the time they'll get weak and then when you need them they're weak they're too weak to do what you need them to do and they're overworked so it's just like if you're to do a thousand bicep curls you're gonna get sore if you're in poor posture it's like you're doing a thousand bicep curls throughout the day you're just working those rhomboids throughout the day they're going to get sore and tense and you're going to get trigger points and they're just going to feel all stiff and nasty so we've got to make sure that the thoracic spine has good mobility and functions correctly now here's another study that illustrates this point and the title of this study tells you what it's all about the title is effects of thoracic spine manipulation so thoracic spine manipulation is pushing on the thoracic spine in order to improve its Mobility specifically into extension on pressure pain sensitivity that's the sensitivity to pushing into the rhomboid muscle and active trigger points in that muscle and it's a randomized controlled trial and there are two groups one received just physio the other received thoracic spine manipulation and Physio and the results were that the thoracic spine manipulation group showed a greater decrease in pain in the rhomboids and a higher level of pressure that could be tolerated when poking into the muscle meaning it's less sensitive so this just goes to show how important thoracic spine Mobility is to decreasing pain in the rhomboids so those are three common root causes there could be more but these are very common problems that people have especially in our society these days that can contribute to upper back and rhomboid pain so what do we do about it well the first thing is if you're feeling stiff and tight in the rhomboids a lot of people will go to static stretching as the first thing to do but that's something that we do very very sparingly instead and it might feel or seem counterintuitive what you want to do is activate the rhomboids really fire those muscles up what you find when you do that is that the tension just releases and it feels better your body knows that the muscle's working it just releases so a good way to do that is with a bent over rhomboid row just an isometric movement for this you just hinge over at the hips first movement is retract the scapula so pinch the shoulder blades together really pinch hard and then from there keep them pinched and it's like you're doing a rowing type exercise and you keep pinching as hard as you can driving the elbows up towards the ceiling but thinking more shoulder blades together keep those muscles on as you release and if you need a break from the hinge you can or if you're okay you're comfortable in that hinge stay down there so again the first movement is retract the scapula squeeze those shoulder blades together keep them pinched tight and row and keep pinching the shoulder blades together pretending that you're lifting a bar up breathing hold for about 10 seconds and then keeping the muscle activation on of the rhomboids and the upper back bring the arms back down to the floor repeat that for three to six reps hold it for about 10 seconds while you're breathing and that isometric activation alone could help to dissipate some of that rhomboid pin that you're experiencing but this is kind of like a Tylenol it's just a symptom that we're masking with the isometric we're playing with some neural mechanisms there so we want to get to the root causes the first technique I'd like to share with you is the segmental thoracic mobe now this isn't just a passive extension over a foam roller we've got some Active Components in it that will help to get muscles firing up and help to mobilize your thoracic spine into extension and instead of doing this one I'm just going to share a video from our ROM Coach Mobile app which you can check out down below and you can see how this is done the segmental thoracic mobe is an active mobilization for your thoracic spine which is really important for preventing and fixing that Hunchback posture for this you'll need a foam roller or a yoga block when you do this move make sure that you're not moving too fast and don't use any momentum just move under control you're going to start by placing a block at your lower thoracic spine and then you're going to flex and extend over the block under control three times keeping the lower part of your spine your lumbar spine your lower body stationary after flexing and extending you're going to side Bend three times again trying to keep the lower part of your spine stationary when you're done that move the block to another segment of your thoracic spine and repeat make sure you're trying to relax your neck muscles your chest muscles as much as possible keep moving the block until you've hit the whole thoracic spine so you do those movements in four to five areas of the thoracic spine basically from here to here and you're going to help to mobilize into extension and activate some of those deep muscles next up technique that I love especially doing throughout the day when I'm feeling a little stressed got deadlines it's called The Wall next side Bend and this is in wrong coach as well but I'm just going to show it to you here right now just get back onto a wall touch your your butt your shoulder blades and your head and from there you're going to match your movements to your breathing so inhale and then exhale as you bring ear to shoulder hold it for a couple seconds and then inhale back to the neutral and then exhale other side hold it for two seconds keep activating the muscles inhale on the way back up so let's exhale on the way down hold for two seconds then inhale on the way up exhale on the way down hold for two seconds inhale on the way up this technique is really great because it lengthens all of the lateral neck muscles including the levator scalp and it activates all of the lateral neck muscles including the levator's Gap so we're basically stretching the levator's Gap we're activating or strengthening the levator's Gap and that's how you get started on the path to correcting weakness dysfunction of that muscle that will eventually lead to fixing the root cause of this pain for that technique five reps two second hold on either side so that's five reps per side or if you want to just count count up to ten and hold it for about two seconds and the key there is to match the breathing to the movement the fourth and final technique that I'd like to share with you today is called the dissociation technique four shoulder extension dissociating from anterior scapular tilt it's just a very specific nomenclature that I use it's very common in the ROM coach app you'll see get it on Apple and Google but this technique dissociates this movement shoulder extension from this movement anterior scapular tilt so whenever people extend their shoulders the common habitually Associated movement pattern is to anteriorly tilt the scapula like that we're going to break that pattern and by doing this we're going to really fire up this serratus anterior muscle which does the opposite of anterior scapular tilt we talked about this already it does posterior scatter tilt so there's another one that I'm going to show you it's in ROM coach but I'm going to show it to you right here got a little tweak that I've come up with recently start off really bad posture round the shoulders forward tilt the scapula anteriorly jut the head forward just nasty gross posture from there extend the shoulders keep that bad posture and then you're going to try to keep extending the shoulders keep lifting the arms up while straightening up and posteriorly tilting the scapula to extend the shoulders up trying to touch the hands back together focus on posterior scapular tilt sucking the shoulder blade the bottom shoulder of the shoulder blade into the body keep retracting pinching the shoulder blades together breathing and then keep that muscle activation on as you return to neutral and then gradually let go of everything don't just get there and then fall out of it we want to control through the full range of motion so again I'm going to show you this angle bad posture extend the shoulders straighten up and posterior tilt scapula keep extending lifting the arms up trying to pinch the shoulder blades back and down lifting the arms up trying to touch the hands behind my back touch my elbows behind my back chin tucked poster tilt posterior tilt posterior tilt while you're breathing keep the activation on and hands back down to your sides and gradually release the muscles dissociation techniques these are very unique techniques that we've come up with they're great for breaking habitually Associated movement patterns and activating muscles when we break these patterns we need to activate different muscles to break those patterns by definition so for this technique we're breaking this movement pattern and in doing so we're going to activate the serratus anterior it's a great exercise this muscle is so important you need to be able to do this technique and get that muscle fur five reps about a ten second hold make sure you're breathing when you're holding and you're activating you're not just hanging out here I'm just hanging out here this is no I'm not trying at all but now I'm activating I'm doing all those cues posteriorly tilting it's hard so regardless of your strength your Fitness level it should be difficult okay and it's up to you to make it so so these are the four exercises that are going to address these three common root causes in the first exercise that's just like your Tylenol just to get your pain level down a little bit so you can feel better so what'd you think of this video if you liked it hit me up with a like or if you have any comments about it leave them down below we'll check them out make sure you're subscribed to the channel if you'd like to move freely and without pain and you want to keep up to date with us and we've got some other videos you can check out this one up here another great exercise for the thoracic spine this video shows some more stuff for the levator scap and make sure you check out our shoulder pin solution which is a comprehensive Progressive program to get you out of shoulder pain and to keep it that way for good thanks for watching and keep moving

Channel: Precision Movement

Views: 1,266,163

Keywords: upper back pain, rhomboid pain, upper back pain relief, rhomboid pain relief, upper back, pain relief, rhomboid muscle, upper back pain causes, back pain, back pain relief, back pain exercises, fix rhomboid pain, shoulder blade pain, rhomboid exercises, rhomboid stretch, neck pain, upper back pain relief exercises

Id: 3SoCJ1sUUYc

Length: 16min 2sec (962 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 25 2022