Working Overhead may seem simple, but the mobility required to do it properly is rarely seen.
Whether you’re painting, drilling or lifting weights above your head, an important part of staying injury free is to have the mobility you need to get your arm up there without compensating somewhere further down the chain.
Movement is required at a range of joints to move properly:
- Your Shoulder (called your glenohumeral joint, it is the movement at the ball and socket joint between your arm and shoulder blade)
- Your Shoulder blade (your scapulothoracic joint, it is the movement between your shoulder blade and your rib cage)
- The AC joint (where your colar bone joins your shoulder blade)
- Your upper back (how much you can back bend through your thoracic spine)
- Your neck (extending your neck so you can see where you’re working)
So how much movement do we need to have, and how can we easily measure it?
Shoulder mobility: You should have 120 degrees of movement at your shoulder. An easy self assessment of your shoulder mobility can be seen here (watch from 1:16 to 1:50). See images 1 & 2 below as a quick guide
Shoulder blade mobiltiy: You need 60 degrees of upward rotation of your shoulder blade on your rib cage. See images 3 & 4 below as a reference point. There are two ways to look at this
- In the mirror looking at the rotation (image 3)
- As a rough guide, with your arm above your head, the bottom of your shoulder blade should line up with the middle of your armpit. (image 4)
AC Joint rotation: As you lift your arm your AC joint should rotate backwards, although hard to visualise, most crunching sensations come from this joint. Accompanied by pain locally over the joint (image 6), it could be restricting your movement.
Upper Back Extension: You should be able to straighten your up back so that it extends roughly 10-15 degrees past vertical. This can be a huge challenge with the massive amount of time spent hunched over a desk, or staring at a computer screen. If you compare Steve’s back in image 2 and 4, you can see the significant amount of mobility he has in straightening his upper back when he lifts his arms above his head.
Neck Extension: A minimum requirement for mobility to look upwards is about 70 degrees through your neck. Image 5 shows what is required. Most commonly people get stiff in the lower sections of the neck, meaning all their mobility comes higher up, often causing headache, neck pain and shoulder pain.
