- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most
famous physical therapists on the internet
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad, believe it or not,
the topic that today was brought up by my son.
He said he was looking this up
and he didn't find any good videos on it.
So he wants to know how to stop a winging scapula.
And that's either, that's a scapula
or a shoulder blade that's actually
coming out from the body.
You wanna show 'em where the-
- Yeah, if you look here, just leave that there Bob.
We'll bring her over.
- Bring it over to there.
- We call it the Rasputin or whatever it is we call it.
- Napoleon
- Napoleon.
- Bonaparte.
- Yeah. So here's the shoulder blade right there.
And of course you can't really see that
on a person, unless it wings out,
then it really shows. And we got a good example.
- That's why I'm wearing this shirt today, by the way.
- Yeah.
- [Bob] Brad, you're gonna have to guide me.
Am I in a good position here?
- Oh, Bob. You're in a great position all the time.
- [Bob] Look at the camera.
- Okay. Go forward a little bit.
- [Bob] Okay.
- Right there, good.
- [Bob] All right. Now watch,
Now this is they're in a normal position
but now look at this.
- Oh, look at right here.
Look at this look, look at this.
I can stick my finger right under there.
That is a winging scapula right there.
Let's get a little closer Bob,
with that white shirt it kinda,
there look at that.
I can stick my whole hand right under that
and this side is more normal.
This one wings a little bit too.
You are a winging scapula type of guy Bob.
- Now very interesting Brad,
is that I actually had paralysis of
one of my nerves that caused the scapula to wing,
and that's on the left side.
That one actually is better than the right side now.
That muscle went away and wait,
we don't need to go into that.
But if you have winging on one side,
which may be your dominant arm,
that might be because you're a thrower.
Do you throw, are you a pitcher or a javelin thrower?
And what's happening to you,
you're strengthening all the muscles on the front
and you're stretching out the muscles on the back.
- Sure.
- We're gonna wanna do the opposite.
We're gonna show you three exercises to do.
You're gonna wanna do stretch the exercises
on the front and strengthen the exercise in the back.
- Stretch the muscles on the front Bob.
- Yeah. What did I say, exercises?
- Exercises.
- I'm not talking well today.
All right, if you are having winging of both scapulas
or both shoulder blades, I, what is probably happening
Brad is you probably had a poor posture
and this is very common nowadays,
especially when you have the computer all day long.
The shoulders start to roll forward.
- Yeah.
- And this gets tight in here.
The back rounds out and your head is forward
and that makes those scapula wing.
Now I've heard people, even my son was
talking about this, that actually have
trouble doing bench press cause that's a narrow bench
and they have trouble getting their scapulas,
or their shoulder blades to lay on the bench.
- Right.
- So it's, it's actually kind of an uncomfortable thing.
- Sure.
- And, and what you'll find interestingly enough,
is people that do a lot of bench press
but don't do anything strengthen the back.
Same thing, they're pulling it forward
and they're getting some winging of the scapula.
- Right
- So let's jump right into it Brad,
first exercise we're gonna do
before you start anything you wanna stretch out.
- Right?
- And if you don't have a foam roll like this
get rid of this for a second.
You can just take a couple bath towels
and roll it up into a big roll like this.
And you can put it down on the floor,
and what you're gonna do is you're gonna lay over.
You're gonna get it on about, on your mid back like this.
This is a great stretch to do.
And you're just gonna lean like this.
And you're gonna lay back
and bring your arms back like this and just let it stretch.
- Feels good.
- It feels good. If you are really, really tight,
this could take you weeks before you start
getting stretched out like you should.
All right. That's one way to stretch.
Another way to stretch Brad,
do you wanna show a doorway stretch?
- Oh sure, Bob.
- I can actually,
- Let's move. - Run the camera
- Over this way, Bob.
- [Bob] All right.
- Oh, excuse me. Just kidding.
Okay, here we go.
Hands here on the door frames about this level.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- You just lean forward, gently and you'll feel stretch.
Those pecs stretch. Oh, it's a nice stretch.
You just can hang out here for about 20, 30 seconds.
If you can stretch that long, give a little rest.
- [Bob] If you have just one side, you wanna stretch
you can also just stretch one side, Brad.
- Sure.
- [Bob] You wanna show how that I'll hold the door.
- And then you can do it like this.
I got it with my foot, Bob.
- [Bob] You got it?
- Fear not there we go. Hand the door frame and
- [Bob] Then lean forward it
and then kinda turn into it, yep.
- Like someone's pulling forward here.
Don't overdo it though.
It's kind of a vulnerable position for the shoulder.
- [Bob] Yeah.
- It should be not painful, just a stretch.
- [Bob] So that's stretch Number one.
Exercise Number one
to do
with a winging scapula.
You wanna make sure things are stretched out.
Now that things are stretched out
and you're giving yourself some room.
Now you're gonna wanna start doing some strengthening.
Now let's first assume
that you don't have any equipment for strengthening.
So we want to make sure we accommodate everyone.
So you just take a pillow.
You might even have to take two pillows
and you're gonna lay down onto the pillow like this.
And you can actually put another pillow here
or just put your head on the bed or the floor.
And you're gonna start off with your thumbs
about at the level of your ears, like this.
And now I'm gonna lift up
and what I'm doing is I'm squeezing
my shoulder blades together.
- [Brad] Towel roll works too.
- Yeah. squeezing my shoulder blades together,
counting to 10. And we're gonna repeat that 10 times.
Okay. This is just uncomfortable.
- [Brad] It works better on the floor.
- All right, then you're gonna go ahead and put your arm
out straight and go straight up and count to ten.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
And do it ten times.
And the last one is you're gonna
bring your arms back like this and
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
So we got first one thumbs about ear level,
arm at about a 90 degree angle, bringing it straight up.
Shoulder blades are coming together.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Second one, arms about straight out,
maybe a little bit down towards my hips.
Up, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Repeat 10 times.
Last one, bring way back.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Based on the work of Blackburn a physical therapist.
Very good. Now, if you can, a step above that
would be to actually start using some weights with that.
You could do the exact same thing with weights.
So again, about ear level, you can go up.
This is pretty advanced. This is gonna work ya.
Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
arm straight out.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
and arm back here.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
I'd be doing both sides.
- [Brad] And if nothing else,
you get really good at counting up to 10.
- That's right. Got it down.
But what I do, if you wanna go ahead and invest
you what do you wanna do is you are gonna buy
some TheraTubing or TheraBand
or exercise tubing or exercise band.
It's stretchy and I like the ones with handles.
You can go on Amazon probably just put
stretch band or stretch tube.
- [Brad] Yep. That's in there
- And you'll find it.
I just go ahead and find a surface.
I put it around here, like this.
I love these. I do these once a day. Every day.
Brad, you didn't close the door.
- [Brad] Oh, sorry, Bob.
- All right.
- [Brad] It happens
- Standing with good posture.
And I go ahead and I bend up.
It's kind of the same exercises.
I'm gonna go up with my thumbs up to
above my ears and I'm squeezing my shoulder blades together
and I do a good 15 of these.
- So the emphasis is right here.
Squeeze. And go ahead, Bob
can you see the wrinkles in their shirt?
Cause everything's coming back together like this.
- Okay. Take a little rest.
And now I go straight out.
- [Brad] That's a little harder. Isn't it, Bob?
- Yeah. You get a good 15.
And the last one, I'm gonna go thumb, palms down.
And I do a good 15.
- And I do want to emphasize that you're gonna think
about going downwards with the shoulders as opposed to
shoulders have a tendency to go towards the ears.
- Exactly.
- [Brad] Exactly. That's a nice comment, Bob.
- All right.
The last exercise is one is really just
being aware of your posture all day long,
whenever you're sitting or whenever
you're in that position where you're
even standing, make sure your chin's not forward,
your shoulder's not rolled forward.
So to correct that all you need to do
is do what we call chin tucks,
where you're kind of sliding your
oh you Yeah. You call 'em chin tucks right.
- [Brad] That's what I call 'em Bob.
- Chin tucks and shoulder squeezes.
So can you see this, Brad?
Just throughout the day
you're gonna do some of those.
- [Brad] Oh yeah. Look at it.
See you got the shirt wrinkle back
- [Bob] And again, you wanna think
bringing the shoulder blades back and down,
do you wanna show that Brad, on me?
- [Brad] You bet. Go ahead.
So going back and down this way, see those,
those lower traps pull that way.
So you want those lower traps to go to work.
Therapists all know that we need that
strong lower trap strength.
- So you need to do that.
That's something every I'd like to see every 20 minutes
during a day, if you're sitting,
you're gonna go ahead and do that exercise.
Or even you can do some shoulder rolls like this
but you're gonna do that constant reminder,
chin tucks to get your body straight
and to stop those scapula from winging
or shoulder blades from winging.
Anything else, Brad?
- Bob, I did a nice job on that camera.
You should see how good this film is gonna look.
It's gonna be our best one yet.
- We'll see.
- So if you're 40 over continue to view us,
cause we're gonna continue with good
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- Oh yeah. With the yeah ,subscribe
- Take care. Peace out.