Flattening Shoulder Blades

[atacrossroads]

I don't know if anyone has any experience of this either with their DC or pupils, but since growing during puberty, my DD who is 14, is having difficulty flattening her shoulder blades and back when her arms are down in bras bas. Once they are moving into first, second, or fifth they flatten out, but when her arms are down they are sticking out of her back.

Is this something that might improve when the thoracic spine grows, is it weakness in the lats, or a genetic problem that can't be improved? Any advice would be great!

[drdance]

Weakness in the lats, quite likely. Also, during teenage years as girls become more self aware they tend to lift their shoulders and bring them slightly forward which then can cause the shoulder blades to wing out a little. Try encouraging her to put her arms in bras bas then to 'roll' her shoulders up, backwards and down. Another tip that might help - have her stand with her arms out to the sides and imagine reaching her middle finger away, then have her slowly move her arms down to bras bas keeping the same feeling of breadth across her chest/back.

[Bluebird22]

[atacrossroads]

Thank you drdance for the advice re the breadth across the chest, that's so helpful for her to do.

 

Bluebird22 that video is amazing! What a difference! You've made my evening

[Bluebird22]

Lisa Howell is amazing, I'm a little bit obsessed with her!

[amos73]

This video is very helpful to show how it should look - does she have any exercises etc that can be done to help the dc achieve this?

[drdance]

This video is very helpful to show how it should look - does she have any exercises etc that can be done to help the dc achieve this?

See my post above, that should help!

[Interested Parent]

I've had this problem all my life and didn't realise that it was adding to my headache problems until I saw a Physio and looked at myself walking in a mirror from the side. I couldn't even activate those stabiliser muscles under and below the shoulder blades. So my physio had me stand with my back against the wall, very close so that the wall was pressing against this area. I then rolled my shoulder blades back as advised by Dr Dance and could just about feel them. You can also do this lying on the floor and pulling your shoulders back to touch the floor. The physio told me to do 3 x 20 reps of activating/squeezing these muscles every day. After 6 weeks and also paying attention to my overall posture my headaches had reduced from 3 a week to 3 a month!!! Amazing. BTW my DD has this problem but has also learnt to control it with exercises.

[taxi4ballet]

Reading this thread with interest - I'm going to give these exercises a go

[atacrossroads]

Interested parent, those exercises make loads of sense in actually locating those specific muscles. We'll give them a go tonight