Reclaim Your Shoulder Health: Fixing Scapular Winging For Good

One of the biggest indicators of poor shoulder health is scapular winging. It can also be a symptom of poor pelvic and ribcage alignment, and while not always symptomatic, can normally be paired with some sort of back discomfort due to poor stacking in the body.

What is Scapular Winging

Generally a scapular wing is considered a scapula (shoulder blade) that”wings” or visibly protrudes away from the ribcage like in the before image above. It happens when the scapula sits at the wrong angle relative to the ribcage, and as a result the inside boarder is visible. This can be the top or the bottom of the scapula, or both depending on the angle of the shoulder blade itself and represents poor muscular support around the shoulder.

What Causes It?

• Poor abdominal and thoracic (ribcage) pressure due poor stacking of the pelvis and ribcage can be one big reason the scapula wing. Our shoulder joint is the most mobile joint in our body, and as a result almost floats on our ribcage held in place by a careful balance of lots of muscles. If our ribcage is compressed or crushed because of its kyphotic position, the scapula lacks a solid platform to rest on and is more likely to wing.
• People generally assume that they are lacking shoulder mobility when they have shoulder issues, and as such try to mobilise them excessively. Our scapula are the junction between our arms and ribcage, and should provide stability for that connection. If you move the scapula more relative to the arms and ribs than you should, it’s very easy to create hyper mobility in the area. Winged scapula can also be a symptom of too much shoulder blade movement.

In the above, Shane came to Functional Patterns Dublin with some low back and shoulder pain. As a long distance runner, he needed to be able to handle the training load required to compete in his sport. He trained with us for 11 months and made some good upgrades to his structure.

Before

• Scapular Winging
• Lower Back Pain
• Poor Weight Distribution (leaning left)
• Anterior Pelvic Tilt

After

• No Scapular Winging
• No Low Back Pain
• More Neutral Head and Ribcage Position
• Better Weight Distribution
• Improved Pelvic Position

Both pictures are relaxed and these results were achieved over 11 months. In his time Shane also ran his best 5000m time. His back and shoulder pain are gone, and he now recovers from training much quicker. If you would like to achieve results like this, get in touch with our team and let’s get started.