The following Yoga Anatomy article is an in-depth analysis of how improper spinal alignment and lack of awareness to the scapular region leads to chronic neck and shoulder pain.
This article offers guidance in applying correctional cues in your Yoga Class to reduce and/ or eliminate these chronic conditions.
The arms (bicep, tricep, deltoid) and back (rhomboid, levator, latissimus dorsi and trapezius) need to be toned and strong to be healthy and pain free.
Your home practice is a great place to deepen your connection with these larger, more obvious muscles. By holding poses like plank, side plank pose (vasisthasana) and dolphin for long periods of time, you can explore and fortify each muscle in the upper body.
Notice that pressing down between the thumb and index finger turns the bicep muscle on. Four-limbed staff pose (chaturanga dandasana) requires a significant amount of strength from the entire shoulder girdle.
Some styles of yoga do this pose repeatedly and, if you begin to feel some shoulder pain, it's important to drop your knees to the floor as you lower down, easing the burden on the shoulder.
So don't be surprised if one day while you're doing a hard yoga pose, with humeri retracted, the pain in your shoulders leaves you for good.
Ask anyone who's had it and they will tell you about their misery--in vivid, excruciating detail.
Someone with rotator cuff pain will point to the front of his shoulder when you ask where it hurts. Your own natural healing energy begins to flow through the shoulder girdle. Then pain goes away as the the tendons are healed and inflammation goes down.
When deciding on exercise and/or yoga poses for your frozen shoulder, one way to think about what will work is to visualize what you would do if you had knots in a necklace chain.
If you ever tried to undo knots in delicate chains, you know that going in and doing major tugging right off the bat doesn't work.
The Structural Yoga Therapy book is good because in addition to exercises to free up shoulders and other joints, it addresses topics such as high shoulders, scoliosis, pronated ankles, kyphosis (hunchback), lordosis (swayback) and many more.
Western medicine often treat human bodies like car parts, where you can work on one defective part without influencing the other.
Glen Wood – The Yoga Teacher, dedicated to unlocking the Real Secrets of Back and Shoulder Pain.
