Shoulder Blade Pain--When the Knots in Your Upper Back Won't Relax?

People often ask me if I can help them get rid of the knots between their spine and shoulder blades. I explain why they have knots in their upper back and why they are having pain. And, I also explain why the therapies they have tried did not work or didn't work for very long.

If you have had deep tissue massage or other treatments that didn't get rid of your shoulder-blade-to-spine pain, it's because the treatment did not address the cause of your pain. The massage therapist or doctor was working on your symptom rather than the actual cause of your pain. This is a very common occurrence as therapists and doctors often don't understand exactly why someone is having pain.

Here is some background. Each of your muscles attaches to at least two bones. This is what allows us to move. If a muscle is pulling on one side of a bone because it is short and tight, then the muscles that attach to the other sides of the bone will also be pulled on (they will get stretched.)

The muscles that are being stretched will start to complain. And, they will develop "knots." The knots are their way of getting your attention. Your muscles are calling to you.

Actually, your muscles may be screaming at you.

Those stretched muscles are called "taut." Taut is different from "tight." Taut muscles cannot relax on their own. Taut muscles need the muscles around them that are pulling on them to be relaxed, or released, before they can relax.

So, if you have had massage or other therapies that did not relieve your painful back spasms or knots, now you know why.

What are some things you can do yourself to get rid of those knots?

1. Have a therapeutic massage. Ask the massage therapist if he or she will be able to work on the muscles that are around your knot (which are the probable cause of your knot) to release them before massaging the knot itself.

2. A good massage therapist will also be able to figure out whether your shoulder blade knot is being caused by tight muscles in your neck. Those muscles are called the scalenes and they can cause knots in your back near your shoulder blades.

3. Strengthen your back from the base of your head to the back of your thighs. This will help prevent the painful back knots from happening in the first place. It will help normalize your muscles. See the helpful articles at SimpleStrengthening.com

4. Try "tennis ball therapy." Lie down on the floor with a tennis ball under the "knot." Just lie still for 5 minutes. The tennis ball will aggravate the knot and get more blood flowing to that area. This will often help release your knot.

5. Squeeze your shoulder blades toward your spine. This helps strengthen your back muscles and stretches the too-tight muscles that caused your knot in the first place.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
A person who is well-educated about the cause of their pain or dysfunction is more likely to get better than someone who simply puts their care into the hands of another person. You can get lots more 'education' at http://SimpleBackPainRelief.com I have many more natural back pain relief articles there.

And I'm glad you are becoming that well-educated person so you can get rid of those shoulder blade knots.

Back Pain - Spasm Between Shoulder Blade and Spine

You probably know the back pain I mean. It's that nagging, cannot-be-ignored pain between your shoulder blade and spine. It often feels like a knot or spasm.

It's usually on the side of your dominant hand. If you're right-handed, it will probably be on the right side of your back.

There are two likely causes and one that often gets the blame, but usually isn't the cause.

The rhomboid muscle (there is one on each side of your back)often gets blamed as being the cause of that pain. The reason for this is probably because the muscle happens to be in the same area as your back pain. This is the muscle most massage therapists will probably try to rub out for you, but it may or may not (probably not) be the cause of your pain.

If this massage doesn't help, or the muscle "won't release," then the rhomboid muscle is not the cause of your pain.

A more likely cause is that the muscles where your knot is located are being overstretched. They are complaining about this by causing pain. Overstretched muscles will go into spasm to keep from being stretched further and torn.

Your back muscles can get overstretched when the muscles in front of your body (your chest and neck) are short and tight. Over-stretching can also occur when you work or play alot with your arm stretched out in front.

You can correct this by strengthening the muscles between your spine and shoulder blades. The stronger muscles won't be so easily overstretched and so won't go into spasm like they do now. Also, strengthen the muscles behind your neck so you won't go into "forward-head" posture, which also strains your upper back muscles.

Loosen, relax and open the muscles in front of your body, too, with stretching or massage.

Another likely cause of this back pain are the scalene muscles, which are located on each side of your neck. These muscles can harbor trigger points. Trigger points in the scalenes refer, or cause, pain into the rhomboid area.

Often a massage therapist will try to work out a pain by working where it hurts.

You can see in the two likely causes above, that the problem can be elsewhere. The pain between your spine and shoulder blade may be caused by muscles in frohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifnt of your body being short or trigger points in your neck.

The first thing I would suggest today would be to begin a strengthening program for your upper back. This will help you get rid of that nagging pain between your spine and shoulder blade.

There is much more information for you to discover about natural back pain relief at http://SimpleBackPainRelief.com