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The Stupidest Joint in the Body

 

If you’ve ever been one of my clients, or probably even if you’ve taken any number of my group exercise classes you’ve heard me say time and time again what I think is the worst joint in the body. There are many well put together joints, joints that make sense, strong joints like hips or interesting joints like knees and elbows, and the shoulder is not one of them. It’s a trainwreck of muscles, cartilage, and bones that go all over the place and has a high risk for injury because of it. So let’s take a moment to talk about what I think is the worst joint in the body- the shoulder.

 

The first thing that makes the shoulder stupid is that it’s not just one joint, it’s actually two that have to work together for full efficiency. And if you’ve ever worked on a group project, you know how hard it is for everyone to be on board and put their best work forward. The two joints are the shoulder girdle, and the glenohumeral joint. The shoulder girdle consists of the scapula (shoulder blade) and clavicle (collar bone). This serves to set up efficient movement for the other guys- what we classically think of as the shoulder joint. The shoulder girdle gives us movements like shrugging, squeezing the shoulder blades together and rounding the shoulder forward. When your yoga teacher says “place your shoulder down and back in their sockets” this is largely the joint used for this. It sets up quality of movement for the big mover- the glenohumeral joint. This joint is little more than an articulation point at the scapula and clavicle where a cup of cartilage sits and holds the head of the humerus, or the upper arm. Put one fist inside the palm of the opposite hand, and touch that thumb to the fist and that’s what it’s like. Three bones, doing their best, without a whole lot of help from nature.

 

To make it worse, our initiators of movement in that second joint- the muscles that start movements of the whole arm- are the rotator cuff. You’ve probably heard of it, likely because of an injury (stupid joint), but don’t really have an idea of what it is. The rotator cuff is actually four TINY muscles and their job is really just to start the movement enough for larger muscles to take over. WHY? WHY DO THE TINY ONES HAVE TO WORK FIRST? Well, again, they are to set up proper movement. But man, that’s a lot to ask of these little guys. There are about 12 larger muscles that move the rest of the shoulder joints, why can’t they do more? Sometimes physiology doesn’t make a lot of sense. So 4 tiny muscles in there trying the best they can to move a big bone, keep things in place with this cup o’ cartilage, and hoping that the girdle sets up everything right is just a recipe for disaster.

 

The shoulder can be injured in so many easy ways. First, you can dislocate your shoulder in just about any direction. Front, back, up, or down. Some are harder than others and if you dislocate it upward you’ll likely break a bone, but yeah. Over-extend in any direction and you’re not going to have a good time. This does have an advantage with movements such as throwing- professional baseball pitchers literally dislocate their shoulder with every pitch to get that good snap. Know what else they do? Have lot’s of shoulder surgeries. There’s literally one named after a famous pitcher- Tommy John’s Surgery. That sounds great, right? Also, what do you do when you fall? You put your hands down to catch yourself, right? Well, the hand bones connected to the forearm bones, the forearm bones are connected to the upper arm bones, the upper arm is connected to the trainwreck and you break your collar bone. Happens all the time. I’ve done it. Oh, and sometimes that little cup o’ cartilage just decides to say F* all and just not work anymore. It gives out, wears out, and that requires surgery too.

 

SO! It is incredibly important to take care of our shoulders. We use them literally all day every day, and they’re pretty fragile overall so we have to do what we can to keep them happy and healthy. My first recommendation is to make the conscious thought of keeping your shoulders down and back whenever you can so you have the girdle in place for all of our other movements. Secondly, shoulder openers and strengtheners are very important. Sleeper stretches, external rotation practice, wall or floor angels, etc are all very important to keeping those shoulder working as smoothly as a trainwreck is able to work. Look them up, and if you can’t find any of these then let me know, I’ll make some videos. Strengthen your shoulder- so resistance work. Try not to sleep on your sides- that causes stress in the shoulders. And if you have had a shoulder injury, for the love of God or whoever or whatever you believe in make sure to rest and take care of it and keep up with your physical therapy or you’re just going to do it again. Warm up your shoulders whenever you are doing any sort of training- cardio or resistance. Keep them happy, try to keep them healthy, and they’ll be better for it.

 

Some of my favorite joints in the body are the hips- well made and sturdy. The spine- well supported, intricate, delicate but strong. The elbows- they’re super neat in physiology and I won’t go into it. The shoulders are not one of them. They’re mood AF, weirdly positioned, used a lot, and require teamwork to get anything done properly. Try to keep them happy and healthy y’all.