Scalene Trigger Points and shoulder health

[b0ngman]

I recently was able to take a look at Claire Davies' book "Trigger Point Therapy Workbook". I have shoulder problems. Loose swimmer's shoulder/shoulder laxity/scapular instability... whatever you want to call it. Physical Therapy is prescribed (forever) to keep my stabalizers/deltoid as strong as possible to compensate for the laxity.

I have always known that, even though PT works, the source of my problem is not the muscles weaking on their own, but rather some issue with my biomechanics. I have always had a problem of using too much trapezius and not enough of the right muscles when i did certain exercises. For example, when i do rows my shoulder seems to stay shrugged. This has caused my traps and neck muscles to become overly tight. I am sure plenty of you have turned your head quickly and had a sharp pain in your neck.

Anyways, I long ago discovered a major breakthough for my shoulder health. Fixing my posture, most notably my thorasic spine, and also ironing out any trigger points with my thumb/tennis ball/foam roller allowed my biomechanical issues to be helped greatly. However, I have always had an issue with recurring trigger points.

Clair Davies specifically puts the Scalene muscles at the beginning of the shoulder chapter. She states that any Scalene trigger points will need to be taken care of before you move onto the stabalizer muscles. I realized this makes a lot of sense, especially because it means I wont be overcompensating with my trap if I could get my neck muscles to relax more when I lifted.

I looked for any Scalene trigger points pretty much directly above my collar bone and about an inch inwards from where my collorbone meets my breastplate at the center of my chest. Putting pressure on a scalene trigger point is a very eery feeling... you can almost feel it in your brain! I just started doing this about 3 days ago but I am hoping to get this trigger point out and see how I feel then.

Sorry for the long ass post... but I know a lot of people take care of their trigger points and I thought I would share because Davies beleives if you dont get these your myofascial releasing of other muscles will be a waste... and i sure did think about these trigger points in my neck. I reccomend taking a look at her book, it is excellent.

[KBKB]

While I've found trigger points in quite a few muscles of my body, I haven't yet found any in my scalenes. I'm almost disappointed. I've recently experienced pain in the middle deltoid region of the shoulder. A deep, hard massage of the Supraspinatus fixes the problem almost immediately. (I use the pointy end of the Body Back Buddy.)

Anyway, I'll vouch for the efficacy of the techniques described in Clair Davies book. He has another book titled The Frozen Shoulder Workbook which goes into greater depth regarding shoulder issues.

The guy has an interesting and compelling story regarding how he got into this stuff (and how he came to write some books). That story is told in chapter one of his book, and can be read online.