As a musician, your body is likely imbalanced. Playing an instrument or holding a mic while singing is very one sided and repetitive.
A tennis player always uses the same arm repeating the same movements over a over again for hours. As a musician you use your muscle and move your joints in the same way over and over for hours. This imbalanced movement or posture can stress connective tissues and joints, cause instability and eventually create injury and/or pain. Let's measure your shoulder mobility for imbalances.
Test yourself
Stand up tall with your right arm hanging beside your hip. Reach back, bend your elbow and place the back of your hand on your back as high as possible without losing your tall posture. Do not wriggle your hand higher. It needs to stay where it lands.
At the same time reach your left arm straight up toward the ceiling. Bend your left elbow to reach your left hand as far down your back as possible.
Are you able to touch your finger tips together?
If there is space between your hands ask someone else to measure or look at the distance between your finger tips.
Do the same thing with your left hand behind your back reaching up and right arm overhead reaching down your back. Can you touch on this side?
Now What?
If the distance between hands on both sides is the same that's better than a right-left difference.
If you feel pain, get your shoulders assessed right away by a good physiotherapist, chiropractor or sports medicine doctor. They can provide specific suggestions and treatment. If you skip this step you are much more likely to get injured.
Test your right vs left shoulder flexibility and let me know how you do.
fitmusician(at)gmail.com
~ Erica, FitMusician
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