SHOULDER AND NECK TENSION

I have had the most amazing week working with both fitness and stretch clients. I'm not sure if it is because spring is in the air, but the positivity and enthusiasm that I'm coming across is infectious. Instead of coming to me and saying "I need you to fix me", which is what most people really want when they come to see a body work therapist, I am hearing "Can you show me what I need to do to make this issue improve....". I think that spring does that to people, its the "spring cleaning of your body" coming into play.
Well anyway, one of the most interesting cases I saw this week was a lady who has been suffering from pain between her shoulder blades when she tries to do any kind of exercise. Now, my first concern when I heard this was that cardiac pain can sometimes present as back pain, but Marie* assured me that this had been ruled out by a Doctor who told her that she needed physiotherapy for a muscle strain.
Marie also told me that she suffers frequently with tension headaches and always carries paracetamol in her bag. When I assessed her mobility, a number of things struck me -
1. Marie could only turn her head about halfway towards her shoulder on the right and even less on the left.
2. When I asked Marie to drop her chin towards her chest, she was only able to tilt her head forward slightly.
3. Marie's right shoulder was considerable higher than her left - and her left shoulder was sitting much higher than it should have been. She looked like she was carrying more stress in her shoulders than I have seen in a lifetime.

With some warm towels and a cozy blanket, Marie got comfortable and we started with some gentle mobilisation of the shoulder joints. We worked all the way down the spine, ringing out the muscles and soft tissue that travel the length of the back. We finished up the hour session with some gentle mobilisation of the neck coupled with some PNF stretching of the shoulders and despite pushing against pressure when I asked her to, Marie had to be woken up at the end of the session.
Marie found it quite difficult to relax for the first 20 mins of the session as she wasn't quite sure what to expect from the therapy. However, once we finished working on the first side, she was able to wind down and hand her limbs over to me. Marie* said that one of the best parts of the session was having the gentle traction applied all the way from the middle of her shoulder blades all the way up to the base of her skull - she described it as..."... having an unreachable itch scratched".
Marie will need more sessions to improve her range of movement further, but through gentle mobilisation of her shoulders, back and neck, she now has more movement than she did before she came for FST - and that was with mobilisation only along with some PNF for the upper traps.
We will get an update from Marie in the coming weeks as we continue therapy and see if this helps with her tension headaches. Any comments welcome ;)