Painful Knots In Your Back Between Your Spine And Shoulder Blade

Painful Knots In Your Back Between Your Spine And Shoulder Blade

There is a reason for the painful "knots" you have in your back near your shoulder blades. Most often the reason is that you have muscles pulling on your shoulder blade. That, in turn, causes your shoulder blade to pull on the other muscles nearby.

The muscles that are being "pulled" on become taut (taut is a kind of tightness or spasm) to protect themselves. That tautness is the "knot" or muscle spasm or contraction that you feel.

So, which muscles are pulling on your shoulder blade? And why are they doing that?

Here's one example:

If you are right-handed, you probably have that hand and arm in front of your body a lot writing, mousing, or doing other similar work that requires your right hand.

Working or playing with your arm and hand in front of your body for long periods causes the muscles on the front of your arm and chest to become short and tight. They get short just because you are holding them in a shortened position and they get used to being short.

Also, you may be dropping your shoulder for one reason or another. I had this experience when my desk chair was on a floor that wasn't level. I couldn't figure out why I was always leaning to the left. Finally I realized that the chair always turned in that direction when I stood up. (I moved my desk!)

Or maybe you prefer to scrunch up on one side of the couch (sofa) all the time or maybe you sleep on your left side most of the time or maybe you always cross the same leg over the other. All of those things can cause the muscles on one side of your body between your shoulder and waist to shorten.

So, now you can see that you may have muscles pulling on your shoulder blade from many different places. Here are three:

(1) the front of your body.

(2) the muscles on the outside (lateral) side of your shoulder blade (under your arm pit and on your ribs.)

(3) the muscles below your shoulder blade (back and rib muscles.)

Those are some of the muscles that must be released before your knot can go away.

Manual release (using massage therapy and pressure) of the muscles that are pulling makes the process go much faster than stretching alone. But stretching by itself will also help correct your problem.

The stretching movements are primarily to move your arm up (over your head) and outward (to open and stretch your chest muscles.) You can stretch both sides but the symptom-side muscles need to be stretched four times as much.

Also, if you strengthen the muscles between your spine and shoulder blades that will help correct this problem. And, strengthening your back will also help prevent tons of future aches and pain.

So there are certain steps you must take before your knots can relax. Just "fighting" with the knot before you get rid of the causes of your knot won't help.

And it doesn't matter whether you call them knots, muscle spasms or contractions, the fact is they hurt and you CAN get rid of them naturally.