What really locks the shoulder

We have all come across that shoulder.

Strong, flexible, and still stuck.

You stretch it, you strengthen it, you start over the following week. It gains two centimeters, then loses them again. In the end you tell yourself it's the structure and there's not much left to do.

There is often something to do, and it happens somewhere other than in the muscle. Around the shoulder, a crowd of small sensors keeps the brain informed at all times, in the muscles, the tendons, the capsule, the ligaments and even in the skin. Each has its specialty:

1. the speed of movement

2. the tension of the muscle and tendon

3. the pressure and stretch of the joint

4. the end of range, in the ligaments

That's a lot of messages.

All it takes is one arriving garbled for the brain to brake. It won't let the shoulder go where it no longer knows how to protect it, and all the strength in the world changes nothing (the joint proprioception test).

We've sorted what follows by profession, just below, each time with a free course. What we show you there, many sell as a training. With us, it's free.

If you are a physio or osteopath, you surely already have your battery of shoulder tests. What is often missing is the one that tells you which sensor is jammed. We show it on video, movement by movement, in what your shoulder assessment doesn't read yet.

Coach or strength and conditioning, you know the burly athlete who plateaus in mobility. Adding stretches for them is often going in circles. A coach from our community wrote to us, since he started reasoning differently: "I'm seeing a considerable time saving on mobility work." The starting logic is in the introduction to RNP, free as well.

Do you work with children? The one who refuses to climb or hang isn't necessarily too weak. Often, his brain doesn't yet know very well where his arms are when they go up high. It is built through play, on all fours, pushing, climbing. We explain why in the masterclass on the child who learns with their body.

And if it's your own shoulder, beware of anything that promises an unlock in thirty seconds. An athlete we work with saw his strength-training loads rise markedly, but over six weeks of work. For us to look at your case, request an assessment.

Incidentally, those thirty-second before-and-after videos, we see them go by every day, and they make us smile. Press on someone's skin for thirty seconds: they're no longer even ticklish, and nobody concludes that they've changed (we wrote an article about it). We believed in them too, in the 2010s. What matters is what holds after several weeks (how long the effect of a stimulation lasts), and it's a program that builds it.

The shoulder doesn't lack strength. It is waiting for a clear message.

The test, for its part, doesn't translate well to writing. You have to see it done, and it's in the shoulder course, free.

You are a practitioner and you are wondering whether the training is right for you: book a call with the team.