Trapezius Problems, Asymmetry


Hi guys. I have recently noticed by dropping BF my lower traps do not look as close as the same.
My right side seems to attach more lower than my left side…

I have had some LEFT side scapular winging due to bad posture in my childhood.
Even when doing my lat spread the left side middle/lower traps is visibly smaller all around compared to right side.

I attached a picture to show you guys what I am talking about…

Any thoughts about it? Is this something I just have to live with…

Thanks a lot!

not noticeable in the least, nothing to worry about.

I really wouldn’t worry about it… but… spending a few minutes every day hanging completely relaxed from a pullup bar will probably even this out over a few weeks.

I started doing that for completely unrelated reasons (to fix some shoulder impingement issues). I set aside 10 minutes to hang, usually 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Depending on a whole bunch of things, it will probably be painful and uncomfortable to do that, but it becomes easier as the body realigns itself over time.

You may want to give that a shot. A lot of the “imbalances” in my back and shoulders evened themselves out pretty quickly.

Learned about it from here: “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, Revised & Expanded” by John M. Kirsch M.D

how does anyone even notice this sort of thing?

some people have too much time on their hands…

Its not only the aesthetic side of the lower traps. Just wondering if its linked to shoulder instability. Been working on Scapular control, Physiotherapist said I have a slight serratus anterior and lower trap weakness on my left side. Been working on it a while and progressing…

And yes I do have a lot of me time LOL…

I have no idea what my back looks like, or if one side looks different from the other. I lift heavy things and make all of it stronger everyday. To each his own I guess.

I really only noticed something like that with myself because there was a painful pulling feeling at the base of one shoulder blade but not at the other, after doing certain lifts, so I looked in the mirror to see if anything was obvious. But yeah, the hanging fixed all that right up for me. (It hasn’t completely fixed the impingement issues, yet, but it’s improving.)

But if it doesn’t hurt, and it’s not causing issues with anything else you’re doing, I really don’t know when or why you’d notice or care.

You could always get fat, then no one could see it.

[quote]ExedyFit wrote:
Just wondering if its linked to shoulder instability. Been working on Scapular control, Physiotherapist said I have a slight serratus anterior and lower trap weakness on my left side. [/quote]

If it’s causing some kind of dysfunction in your shoulder then you do need to fix it.

Do some face pulls and prone trap raises.

Your head is tilted to one side in the picture. Stand symmetrically and see if your traps look symmetrical.

[quote]LoRez wrote:

I started doing that for completely unrelated reasons (to fix some shoulder impingement issues). I set aside 10 minutes to hang, usually 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Depending on a whole bunch of things, it will probably be painful and uncomfortable to do that, but it becomes easier as the body realigns itself over time.

Learned about it from here: “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, Revised & Expanded” by John M. Kirsch M.D[/quote]

Thread derailment warning.

Yogi-B-Bear: can you expand on this. How long have you been doing this for? How much improvement has it been made? When you hang, is it a complete dead hang?

tweet

[quote]theBird wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

I started doing that for completely unrelated reasons (to fix some shoulder impingement issues). I set aside 10 minutes to hang, usually 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Depending on a whole bunch of things, it will probably be painful and uncomfortable to do that, but it becomes easier as the body realigns itself over time.

Learned about it from here: “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, Revised & Expanded” by John M. Kirsch M.D[/quote]

Thread derailment warning.

Yogi-B-Bear: can you expand on this. How long have you been doing this for? How much improvement has it been made? When you hang, is it a complete dead hang?

tweet[/quote]
I’m assuming you meant me?

There’s not much more to it than that. Basically the arm hangs freely (pronated/palms away/pullup position), which causes the humerus to push against the coroacromial arch, which, over time, remolds the structures and opens up more area underneath the acromion to avoid impingement. The book goes into far far more detail.

From reading reviews, most people had nearly completely relief within as little as 8 days, to as many as 5 months, but most seemed nearly 100% by 8 weeks of daily hanging.

I’ve only been doing it for two weeks, but I’ve already seen some improvement. I’ve been able to do lateral raises with minimal pain, and overhead presses are causing less and less issues for me (usually I’d be sore for several nights after an overhead pressing session).

[quote]LoRez wrote:

[quote]theBird wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:

I started doing that for completely unrelated reasons (to fix some shoulder impingement issues). I set aside 10 minutes to hang, usually 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Depending on a whole bunch of things, it will probably be painful and uncomfortable to do that, but it becomes easier as the body realigns itself over time.

Learned about it from here: “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, Revised & Expanded” by John M. Kirsch M.D[/quote]

Thread derailment warning.

Yogi-B-Bear: can you expand on this. How long have you been doing this for? How much improvement has it been made? When you hang, is it a complete dead hang?

tweet[/quote]
I’m assuming you meant me?

There’s not much more to it than that. Basically the arm hangs freely (pronated/palms away/pullup position), which causes the humerus to push against the coroacromial arch, which, over time, remolds the structures and opens up more area underneath the acromion to avoid impingement. The book goes into far far more detail.

From reading reviews, most people had nearly completely relief within as little as 8 days, to as many as 5 months, but most seemed nearly 100% by 8 weeks of daily hanging.

I’ve only been doing it for two weeks, but I’ve already seen some improvement. I’ve been able to do lateral raises with minimal pain, and overhead presses are causing less and less issues for me (usually I’d be sore for several nights after an overhead pressing session).[/quote]

Couple questions.

What book are you referring to?

How do you hang? …Is it a full straight body hang? or is it a knee bent hang?
I ask because I have a pull-up bar in my door way, but I have to hang bent knee, and wasn’t sure if this would affect it.

Are your shoulders completely relaxed? or do you pull them down into locked position? or both?

thanks

The book is: “Shoulder Pain? The Solution & Prevention, Revised & Expanded” by John M. Kirsch M.D. He’s an orthopedist.

Knees are bent when I do it (I don’t have anything too high to work with either). Initially I spent some of that time with my feet supported on the floor, just to take off a bit of the weight. It’s a completely relaxed hang though; you want the weight to be supported on your tendons and ligaments. I had some really bad elbow discomfort because of that the first couple days, but that went away. Hooks or straps are perfectly ok to use too.

His whole view is basically that humans have shoulders that are designed to hang and swing from trees, and regaining that ability will fix most shoulder issues. He uses the “kids swinging on monkey bars” example a lot.

After 10ish minutes of hanging, he then suggests taking a very light weight (1-8lbs) and doing 30-40 reps of front, side, and rear raises.

Even though I’ve noticed improvement, it’s still too early to say for certain how much things will be improved…

[quote]LoRez wrote:
After 10ish minutes of hanging, he then suggests taking a very light weight (1-8lbs) and doing 30-40 reps of front, side, and rear raises.
[/quote]

ten minuutes??? Jesus

[quote]Yogi wrote:

[quote]LoRez wrote:
After 10ish minutes of hanging, he then suggests taking a very light weight (1-8lbs) and doing 30-40 reps of front, side, and rear raises.
[/quote]

ten minuutes??? Jesus[/quote]

When I posted on here something jogged my mind of a FB page that I followed that recommended something similar.

Ido Portal was the instructors name, basically he had a challenge to hang for up to 30 min for 30 days. This also included 1 arm hangs.

Yeah, Chris Duffin posted something about hanging, where he’s using it for his elbow (and grip). Ido Portal posted some stuff about hanging; he had some “challenge” where you were supposed to get some number of minutes a day cumulative hanging. And this orthopedist guy wrote this book on it.

I went through the Amazon reviews one night, and out of the people who actually tried his protocol, it looked like there was only one person who didn’t have success with it. Everyone else ended up either significantly or completely better, anywhere from 8 days to 8 weeks of doing it. It sounded too good to be true, but I’m giving it a shot. This was for all sorts of shoulder issues too.

You don’t necessarily have to hang for all 10 minutes, but yeah, 10 minutes where you’re alternately hanging and resting. It’s a long time.

When I first started doing it, my body hung pretty unevenly and was fairly twisted. That has pretty much evened itself out now, which I think is kind of cool.

Here’s his basic theory though as far as impingement is concerned.

There’s two bony bits of the shoulder blade that stick out to the front of the body; the coracoid process and the acromion. There’s also a ligament that runs between them. All three create the “coracoacromial arch”. Impingement occurs when tendons get pinched between the humerus (upper arm bone) and that arch.

The theory with the hanging is that it puts pressure on the ligament and the acromion, and, over time, actually causes the bone to reshape itself and make that arch bigger. That way there’s more room for those tendons and less chance of impingement.

Basically it’s like braces… exert enough pressure, over enough time, and the bone will remodel how you want it.

Fluoroscopic imaging is pretty cool: