I am often asked what is scapular stability.

Scapular stability involves the shoulder blade and the muscles that attached to the shoulder blade.

Specifically what shoulder stability is the combination of the shoulder blade and the muscles that are attached to it to do their job.

The key job of the shoulder blade and its muscle are:

#1 – Stabilize the Shoulder Blade

The muscles of the shoulder blade need to have the activation, endurance and strength to keep the shoulder blade in place.

If the muscles of the scapula do not have the activation, endurance and strength to do their job of stabilizing the shoulder blade, this will lead the shoulder blade lifting off the middle of the back which can lead to all kinds of shoulder injuries.

#2 – Reaching Overhead

The muscle of the shoulder blade are key in helping you reach overhead.  For example if you do a pressing exercise overhead or if you reach for something high on a shelf, you scapular muscles play a key roll in doing this.

The muscles of the shoulder blade move the shoulder blade so it opens up more space in the shoulder so you can reach overhead.

If the shoulder blade muscles did not rotate the shoulder back up because it has poor activation, endurance and strength; it would lead to more shoulder injuries and it could lead to you not being able to reach for something high up.

#3 – Movement of the Shoulder Blade

One other function of the shoulder blade muscle is movement of the shoulder.  We talked about how the scapular muscles help rotate the shoulder blade but they also help move the shoulder blade up, down, in and out.

These movements allow our arms to pull and push things.  Just like the above two points, if the shoulder blade muscles lack the activation, endurance and strength to do their job; you end up having poor movement of the shoulder which leads to less efficient movement of the upper back and increases the risk of injury to the shoulder.

If you are doing any shoulder exercises, make sure to spend some time working on your scapular muscles.

If you have a shoulder injury, it is vital for you to spend some time working on your scapular muscles in order to help you overcome your injury.

I know I talked a lot about activation, endurance and strength.  I will expand on this more in another blog post.

Rick Kaselj, MS

If you are looking for scapular stability exercises, I would check out this.