This video demonstrates an ingenious yet simple way to resolve shoulder pain.  In it you will learn a 3 step process to resolve trigger points in scapular muscles, using vibration from a massage gun.  This is the quick method I use to resolve my own shoulder pain, so I can continue to strengthen my shoulders.  Enjoy!

-Doug

Below is the transcript:

Hi, I'm Doug Ringwald. And what I'm going to share with you today is how to alleviate shoulder pain very quickly using vibration. 

I'm going to do this before I do my exercise. Yoga, my morning yoga, because I actually have some shoulder soreness. 

Two days ago I was moving a lot of bags of dirt in a wheelbarrow and throwing bags of dirt and mulch and stuff like that into different places and I might have overloaded my muscles doing that. They've been sore, both shoulders and mostly on the top of the shoulder. And I noticed that my just my general movement is a little bit sore.

Like when I just, when I adduct my scapula, I get some top of the shoulder pain coming down the front of the bicep area. More on the right than the left. I've been working on strength training my [00:01:00] shoulders, and I've been doing things like crow pose, and increasing my time in the pose, and how many repetitions I do, as well as some other shoulder strengthening exercises.

And I want to continue those, but I don't want to continue those with sore shoulders because that's just going to produce more problem, more pain. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to alleviate the issue by using vibration on the scapular stabilizers. So what most people don't understand is that most pain and soreness, even acute pain is usually due to trigger points in muscles.

It's not local injury. It's usually actually trigger point referral. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to treat my scapular stabilizers because that's what's responsible for this type of pain. And then I'm going to do my yoga sequence and my body weight exercises and then afterwards I'm going to do this sequence again.

It only takes a couple minutes and it makes a huge difference. And then when I'm doing my workout and my yoga, I'm not going to push it. I'm going to do the strengthening exercise until I start to feel some soreness or that, I'm reaching the the maximum that I want to do.

You don't want to push through pain. The whole no pain, no gain thing is incorrect. It's much more efficient and it's much more healthy to, have pain free range of motion, and then you start pushing the the threshold with repetitions of strengthening exercise. So here is my quickie three step process to reducing trigger points in the scapular stabilizers, which produces most shoulder pain.

So first I'm going to start with the low and mid trapezius. So I'm going to turn on the vibration tool.

So first I just come through in between the scapula and the spine and just put some vibration in this area. And I'm cross fibering the muscles at the same time. So I do it slowly so that I can actually, feel where there are taut fibers and there's some right there.

And then also, this is more of the low trapezius area. And when I hit the right spot, right about there, I actually feel some referral to the top of the shoulder. So I'm going to target those spots at now as I add movement. So I'm softening trigger point fibers and restoring them to normal ability of contracting on demand of the motor nerve requires some type of neurological distraction and movement.

Those are the two key things. You want vibration or compression, some type of input to the nervous system, as well as movement through range. I'm shortening the low and mid trap with the adduction, the scapula, and then I do the adduction. I'm lengthening. When I bring my arm across my body, I'm bringing the scapula away from the spine into abduction, that's lengthening these fibers.

So I don't have to do this for very long, just, 30 seconds or so. So that's step one. Step two. It's gonna be pec minor and clavicular pec major. I come right below the collarbone, and then I'm gonna put vibration on these muscles.

I let my shoulder just relax at first.

And now I'm gonna start to add the movement. I'm gonna protract my scapula, retract my scapula. That's shortening. That's shortening pec minor, and then pec minor. Lengthen the pec motor with the vibration. Now I'm going to flex the shoulder and adduct it, so I flex the shoulder and adduct it.

That's shortening clavicular pec major. And then I'm going to extend my arm and that is going to lengthen the clavicular pec major. I'm going to extend it. as I externally rotate it as well. That'll give it some extra length.

Now I'm going to come into the vibration on the serratus anterior. Very strong protractor and abductor of the scapula. So what I do for that is I come to a low lunge position. I rest my arm on my leg. That way I don't have to hold this tool up. It's very relaxed. Then I'm going to bring my arm inside of my knee like this.

So this lets my arm just relax, and my shoulder can relax while I'm protracting the shoulder. So the serratus anterior is in a very shortened position. And then I come with vibration just in front of the lateral border of the scapula.

And at first I just cross fiber. And right here, there's a taut fiber, and when I hit it with the vibration, it refers up to the top of the shoulder. That is serratus anterior referral going into the low trapezius, satelliting into it, and then the low trap producing its referral to the top.

Yeah, there's a big fiber right there. So I can just sink into that. Find it again, there we go.

And now I'm going to start to bring the serratus anterior through range of motion, short and long with the vibration. So I'm short right here, and now I'm going to keep the vibration going as I use my arm to adduct my scapula. So now protracting the scapula, and now I'm retracting and adducting it, alright?

So that's shortening serratus anterior, this is lengthening serratus anterior. I go through that range of motion a few times with the vibration.

That's the three steps on that shoulder. Now, I'm just going to take my arm through some range of motion here. See what it feels like. Feels pretty good.

And then I'll do the same thing on the other shoulder. So it only takes a couple minutes. Then I'll do my yoga routine and my bodyweight exercises. And then I'll do the same thing after I do the exercise. I Encourage you to give this a shot and if you have sore shoulders, I think you'll be pretty amazed at the at the results.

If you like this video and would like some more of this type of material, go ahead and and subscribe to the channel. Also, I have a free course available on Neurohacking Yoga with a lot more ideas like this in it. If you like this type of material and find it helpful, go ahead and look in the description of , this video and you will see the link to the course, Neurohacking Yoga. Thank you...