Trap Stretching

Almost every client who comes into my office for massage therapy (or every person I meet!) has tight shoulders. The Trapezius (“Trap”) muscle comprises what most of us consider “shoulders”. It is a very complicated muscle, not only because of the actions it performs, but because of where on the body it is located. It's location makes it challenging to stretch and train, but not impossible, as we'll examine in the next few blog posts.

Anatomy Lesson:

The Trap attaches from the very top of the neck at the base of the skull, out to the edge of the upper arm bone, then in and down to the inner edge of the shoulder blade, then to the lower thoracic spine (about T-12). Phew. So it's clear that the anatomy of this particular muscle is all over the back of the body. It accounts for most the movement of our shoulders (especially up to our ears!) and movement of the neck backward (extension) and from side to side, among other movements, of course.

The First Stretch:

So how do we go about stretching this muscle? First, we can learn to move the upper arm (humerus) down, which pulls the traps down from our ears, releasing tension. When our shoulders go up, when driving, or typing, or even sitting, the tension creeps up slowly and often without our realizing it. So the key point of this week's entry is to understand how to keep those shoulders down, as far down to the floor as possible. We do that by actively and mentally controlling our upper arms.

We can control this movement without weight, just by taking note of when the trap starts to move up, or with weight. With weight, all that's required is to hold the weight (it could even be a full water bottle) softly in your fist, with palms turned in to the body, shoulders back, neck and head up and straight (good posture!) and let the weight pull down your arms. It's helpful to breathe and relax and just let the weight do it's job. People are often surprised that it feels like their shoulders move down a number of inches! Repeat this stretch gently any time you start to feel tension in your shoulders, and eventually, your body will start to remember how that muscle can relax and lay comfortably.

Next week, we'll discuss more active stretches for the trap, and how tension in it can affect headaches and posture.