The rising incidence of upper cross syndrome (shown below) proves our daily lives are affecting our ability to keep poor posture at bay. The importance of shoulder blade stability as it relates to shoulder joint mobility cannot be understated.
Too often, a single sided solution is applied to a double edged problem. The inhibited muscles in the pic above means that even if called into action, these muscles can't actually achieve contraction until the tight areas release. Focusing on the inhibited muscles only won't work. The program necessary to fix the problem includes releasing what's tight, getting extensibility out of it, then contracting what's inhibited.
Understanding the shoulder doesn't have to be daunting. Mechanically, the shoulder joint is almost the same thing as the hip joint. But the two diagrams below point out a glaring difference; the shoulders are not ball and socket joints like the hips:
There is no real shoulder socket like in the hip joint, making the hip better suited for supporting our bodyweight.
But was evolution so haphazard as to leave the shoulder hanging, so to speak?
Hardly.
It made up for the lack of ball and socket stability by creating the rotator cuff muscles. From now on, recognize the shoulder as two separate structures, the shoulder blade and the shoulder joint. The shoulder blade, or scapula, provides stability for the shoulder joint to move properly. It's important to make the distinction between these two joints because problems arise when the blade becomes too mobile, forcing the joint to become too stable, a lethal combination.
If you look at muscle fiber direction only, you see that when the rotator cuff contracts, it pulls the scapula inward toward the midline of the body. If you imagine you have two saturated sponges under each armpit and try to squeeze the water out, the rotator cuff fires.
Clients seeking better postural control need to know how to contract the rotator cuff muscles so the brain feels secure enough to move at the shoulder joint. Supraspinatus, Infraspinatus, Teres Minor, and Subscapularis, all live on the scapula and make up the SITS acronym used to remember these important stabilizers. The supraspinatus stabilizes the shoulder during abduction, the infraspinatus and teres minor stabilize by externally rotating the shoulder, and the subscapularis internally rotates the shoulder.
It's important to note that the trapezius muscles can be of help or hinderance when attempting to improve shoulder function. Again, looking at fiber direction only, the traps pull the scapula in several directions. A preponderance of clients present overdeveloped upper traps that force the brain to downplay the roll of the middle and lower traps. Both are important to shoulder stability since the middles traps retract the blades while the lower traps depress them, muscles I find clients have a hard time engaging.
Other important contributors to shoulder stability are the serratus anterior, most often the culprit in winged shoulder blades, the lower traps, important for combating upper trap dominance, the levator scapulae, probably more to blame for pulling the scapular upward than the upper traps, and the rhomboids, which retract the blade. (I find the brain only uses the rhomboids when the load is significant, suggesting that picking up and holding heavy things greatly benefit those seeking stronger shoulder stability).
Lastly, grip strength ties it all together because the grip tells the brain exactly how serious to take what you're holding. The brain couldn't care less about what you hold loosely. Grip tightly, and the brain takes the contents of your hand very seriously. Every exercise done with a crushing grip allows the brain to respond by creating more shoulder blade stability.
The video below shows you which moves to master before loading the shoulder. Mobility can be dangerous without the means to stabilize it. Precision in upper body movements depends on the stability of the blades.
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