Why posture matters for the shoulder
Posture is very important for shoulders. Good posture can help with many shoulder conditions, and for some problems correcting posture may be all that is required to settle them, so that surgery is avoided altogether. The video below explains how to achieve correct shoulder posture.
The connection between posture and the shoulder
The arm does not hang from the chest; it works from the shoulder blade, which sits on the back of the rib cage and is held in position by muscle rather than by a bony joint. When the upper back rounds forward and the head drifts in front of the shoulders, the shoulder blade tips and rotates forward with it. That changes the position of the socket the arm moves in, and reduces the space through which the rotator cuff tendons pass.
This is why posture turns up so often in the assessment of shoulder pain, particularly in conditions such as shoulder impingement and subacromial bursitis, where the available space matters.
What correcting it involves
Correcting shoulder posture is less about holding yourself rigidly upright than about restoring position and control. In broad terms it involves lengthening what has become tight at the front of the chest, strengthening the muscles that hold the shoulder blade back and down, and then practising the corrected position often enough that it stops requiring conscious thought.
The practical side matters as much as the exercises. Desk and screen height, how you sit in the car, the side you sleep on, and how you carry bags all feed into the position the shoulder spends its day in.
Surgery is not always needed
It is worth repeating the point above, because it is easily missed: for some shoulder conditions, posture correction and a physiotherapy programme may be all that is required, and an operation can be avoided. Where that is the case it is the sensible place to start.
With thanks
With thanks to Lucy, physiotherapist from Extend Therapy, who appears in the video.
Related information
See our shoulder anatomy page for how the parts fit together, shoulder injuries for the conditions posture can influence, and the rehabilitation page. Our post on remembering how to do your shoulder exercises has video demonstrations of common exercises.