Clicking Shoulder No Pain?
Clicking, cracking shoulders, these are some of the noises we can hear when we move our shoulder joint around. It’s very common when a shoulder begins to dysfunction that we’ll start to hear creaking, grinding, cracking, and popping. Before we start to get pain. We treat this very commonly in the clinic as a secondary condition, alongside lower back pain and sciatica.
If we can treat the cricketing, the cracking, and the noises effectively, this can prevent further issues down the line such as rotator cuff problems, and a frozen shoulder. The main thing to identify is the root cause of the shoulder dysfunction.
The shoulder is a very movable joint in a ball and socket, so we can almost get 360 degrees of movement in all planes, which presents problems. The shoulder is also closely linked with the shoulder blade, the clavicle also known as the collar bone, and the neck. And what you’ll find is as human beings, we were designed to be nice and upright, our shoulder blades hugged into our rib cage, and the neck tilted backward.
Cracking Shoulder Blade
But as modern technology, modern demands have put pressure through the shoulder blade neck complex, we tend to find the shoulder blades flare out and upwards, the neck comes forwards and it leaves little room for the ball and socket joint to move, which puts stress on the muscles and the ligaments.
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Rotator cuff exercises
The main ligaments being the rotator cuff ligaments, which you may have heard of. When these start to get stressed, they get tighter and they slide over each other. And this is often one of the main causes of the clicking and the scraping and the grinding. Picture it like pulling your garage door up, when the garage door slides up, it slots into the holster nicely.
But with a shoulder joint when you move the shoulder, if the rotator cuff muscles under too much stress, the garage door is just going to butt up against the top, and it’s not going to go fully in. And that’s when you start to get the grinding and clicking, which can cause pain and serious dysfunction.
So our job is to find the root cause of that issue, correct the shoulder blade, bring the neck back into a good position and then work around the rotator cuff muscles to reduce the noises going through the shoulder. This type of shoulder problem is very common in active, physical people for example builders, plasterers we see a lot in. But also people working at a desk day in day out, more so now than ever with working from home.
Have a look at our YouTube video for how we deal with clicking shoulders with some good exercise tips. Try these every single day for the next three weeks, and see if you notice a difference in the noise through the shoulder. If you’re still struggling, please don’t hesitate to call us and book a discovery visit here.
