I had an interesting client the other day who fell on her shoulder playing soccer and experienced significant shoulder pain for about a week thereafter until I saw her for an appointment. Her scapulae (shoulder blades) were tilted anteriorly and were rotated internally. She was a swimmer but also played soccer.
Because of her tilted and rotated scapulae, the head of her humerus (upper arm bone) was anteriorly gliding (sitting too far forward out of the shoulder socket). Falling on her shoulder pushed the humeral head further out of its socket. How to correct this?
I gave her two exercises to help draw the humeral head back into the shoulder socket however this would not be enough due to her severe tilt and rotation. I thought about taping the shoulder blade but I had never taped an anterior tilt or internally rotated scapula. Usually I just taped a depressed or abducted scapula. I ended up taking one strip of tape across the inferior angle and arcing it under her arm and finishing on her chest. The scapula was perfectly corrected and there was no pain! This gave her relief from the irritation and allowed the shoulder to heal.
This was very exciting for me as I had never considered taping the inferior angle of the scapula before and the results were dramatic. Now I’m wondering if I can train her muscles to hold the scapula in place to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. We’ll see!
I love to creatively solve new problems through visualization of anatomy and biomechanics. There’s nothing better than to see someone who was in pain look up in shock that the pain has disappeared.