Workout of the Day:
Power Clean
3-2-1-1-1
and then,
On the minute, every minute, for 12 minutes:
2 Power Cleans (use 80% of today’s 1-RM)
5 Pull-Ups

Scalenes and Rhomboids – Part Two
Written by Mike Hom

In yesterday’s blog post, I touched on the scalene neck muscles as a (mostly guaranteed) cause of discomfort and knotting in the upper back, shoulder, and upper arm areas of your body. While it is arguable that you should look at the scalenes first when troubleshooting discomfort in these areas, another significant culprit are the wayward muscles known as the rhomboids.

The rhomboids attach to several of the vertebrae of the upper back and to the inner edge of the scapula. Functionally, the rhomboid serves to move the shoulder blade toward the spine through retraction, raise the shoulder blade, and to hold it still when needed. The rhomboids are a common muscle group to diagnose because much of our normal daily activity utilizes them. Any type of overhead motion, throwing, or rowing motion stresses the the rhomboids. Tightness in the anterior (front) of our body will cause our shoulder blades to pull forward. In response, our rhomboids will activate and tighten to try to keep the shoulder blade in place. This constant muscular war the rhomboids get caught up in is rather tiring for these wayward muscles and almost guarantees knots.

Knots that originate from the rhomboids cause an aching kind of pain along the inner edge of the shoulder blade. To counteract this, several things have to happen, most of which can be solved with the same solution.

1. General posture must improve. This is not something that happens overnight. The round-shouldered/kyphotic posture most of us have grown into as a result of today’s social norms has got to depart. Lifting the chest and “opening up” the front of the body is a key concept we will constantly discuss and rant about.
2. Deactivate trigger points on the anterior side of your body. Listen people, it will hurt when you roll out your pectoral muscles (aka, your chesticles). But it gets difficult to correct your posture or give relief to your rhomboids without dealing with the trigger points on the front of your body.
3. Roll out your upper back with a foam roller and hit the rhomboids with a lacrosse ball. You can never have enough thoracic mobility. Part of that thoracic mobility involves opening up the front of your body. Rolling out also helps knead out the lumps on your back, which is absolutely necessary to improve and maintain good posture and spinal health.

I used to fall into the trap of only attacking my rhomboids and muscles around my scapulae to deal with my upper back discomfort. Since hitting my scalenes regularly, I’ve noticed I actually hit my rhomboids less and the knots that line my shoulder blade don’t bother me as much.

Understand that the scalenes and rhomboids are only two of several muscle groups that contribute to discomfort in the upper back, shoulder, and upper arm areas, but they are two of the more important ones. To summarize, if you are experiencing discomfort in the upper back, shoulder, or upper arm area, hit your scalenes first and finish up with your rhomboids. Your body will love you for it in the long haul.

Tags: Anatomy/Physiology, Rest and Recovery

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Workout Of The Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.