Winter & Workouts = Shoulder Pain! Here’s How to Fix It with Massage for Shoulder Pain!

Your Shoulders and Winter are not good friends…

Have you booked a massage for shoulder pain session yet this winter? If not, you’ll probably feel like we are psychics about how your shoulders are feeling right about now…

It’s that most wonderful time of year…okay, actually it’s not all that wonderful right now.

The holidays are over, it’s real cold, and your are deep into new year projects, stress, and pressure.

And we’ve still got several weeks to go 😬🤒

Add in indoor exercise to that (weightlifting, yoga, boxing, Crossfit) and you’ve got a perfect recipe for shoulder pain and injuries…..

Winter Shoulder Pain Recipe

• 1/4 cup “lifting shoulders due to cold”

• 1 cup “stressing at work” which engages our fight/flight response and lifts the shoulders

• 1 tablespoon “indoor exercise” which impacts shoulders more intensely (due to the other above ingredients)…

This recipe leads to overuse injuries such as rotator cuff tears, biceps tendonitis, and bursitis. 

What you get when this cake is baked is “I don’t know what happened….but my right (or left) shoulder just started hurting…..HELP!”

Shoulder Pain in Winter: What YOU can do about it

If you haven’t gotten to the pain level yet, congrats!

If you don’t want to get there, come see us for massage therapy for shoulder pain (or any other pains you are dealing with). In the meantime, the following will absolutely help to prevent further injury:

Invest in a good winter coat, hat, scarf (no, really)

• Fashion is cool and all…and usually cold too. You may not like wearing a parka, or messing up your hair with a hat, but your shoulders will thank you if you are warm enough.
• Your body is dealing with cold that it’s not insulated against.
• Our nervous system is hardwired to “protect the important bits” (ie your head and your trunk where all of your important organs are).
• It raises the arms and shoulders in a self hug to bring more body heat to your brain (the most important bit) and lungs.
• This is brain stem level instinctual….if your body is cold enough to be scared of hypothermia it will raise your shoulders no matter how much you want them not to.

For More Information: Shoulder Pain Massage

How to get a great 60 minute massage in New York that exceeds your expectations

Satisfaction in life has mostly to do with things turning out about how we expect, or better. When things happen below our expectations, we tend to be dissatisfied. I train my industry-leading massage therapists at Bodyworks DW on intake and outtake with new clients. A lot of that training goes into how to help clients have realistic goals and expectations for a medical massage in New York. In general, that means helping some clients realize that massage has a lot more to offer than simply relaxation and stress relief. And also helping other clients realize that for most pain issues it takes more than one session to completely relieve their issue.

Massage in New York can help relieve pain for the long term

If your experience of massage is limited to the occasional hotel spa massage while on vacation… You likely view it as a form of relaxation and stress relief. And no more. If you are in real pain, you’ll go to a chiropractor, physical therapist, or straight to the hospital. And for most massage therapists working at a hotel spa, you are not wrong to think of massage in this limited way. The training requirements for massage therapists vary greatly from state to state. Not to mention country to country.

For example, here are the training requirements for 4 popular vacation states, and the New York requirements:

• Florida – 500 hours and NCETMB or MBLEx
• California – 500 hours and MBLEx or NCBTMB
• Virginia – 500 hours and MBLEx
• Texas – 500 hours and MBLEx or NCETMB
• New York – 1000 hours and state exam

MBLEx is the “massage and bodywork licensing exam” and is used by many states in the US. NCETMB is the “National Certification Exam for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork” test. Both are multiple-choice question tests of a massage therapist’s knowledge. This includes anatomy, technique, and professional ethics.

For More Information: Massage Therapy New York

How has sports massage in NYC benefited our clients?

Competitive athlete? Weekend warrior? Recreational fitness enthusiast? At Bodyworks DW, we work with a wide variety of active individuals. Our therapists provide custom-designed sports massage sessions focused on helping you maximize your activity enjoyment. This can include sessions for injury recovery, injury prevention, tune-ups and maintenance. Sports massage in NYC for active people and athletes is hardly a luxury – it’s an investment!

Sports massage provides targeted, therapeutic treatment tailored to the biomechanical and physical needs of the athlete. In other words, it’s not going to be like your typical fluff n’ buff spa massage  You’re going to be moving around a bit for analysis. You and your therapist will be working together on increasing range of motion and unwinding injuries. And you’re going to get some homework!

Curious how a sports massage in NYC might work for you? We’ve taken some of our most common client-athlete cases and given you a run-down of how a sports massage could benefit each one. Keep reading more to dive in!

All-Around Athletes: CrossFitter (CrossFit, Boot Camp)

The CrossFit community is known for its high-intensity, highly variable workouts. These incorporate anything from gymnastics to Olympic weightlifting to aerobic conditioning. In particular, CrossFit places a high demand on the shoulders. There are a lot of overhead movements. And also plenty of movements that require quite a bit of shoulder stability AND mobility. We get a lot of clients coming in with CrossFit shoulder injuries from pushing a bit too much too soon. 

Shoulder stability and mobility is a complex interaction between the scapular-thoracic interface and the glenohumeral (GH) joint. The scapulae (shoulder blades) sit near the upper half and outside portions of the back of the rib cage. The GH joint (or shoulder joint) is at the side of your upper arm. It’s where your arm attaches to your shoulder. Both have to work together to keep your entire upper body properly positioned when doing any overhead movement. 

More Information: Sports Massage in NYC