Try these three exercises to relieve your shoulder pain. Go slowly, do not push yourself into pain, and you will know if they are right for you. These three exercises encourage the shoulder blade to glide over the ribcage for easy range of motion.

#1 Thoracic spine stretch: This exercise enables you to connect spinal opening with shoulder blade glide. A stiff upper spine is often implicated in shoulder dysfunction.

#2 Dolphin: We are often moving our arms around in the shoulder joint. In this exercise, by moving your body weight through your shoulder girdle, you are stimulating the shoulder joint in a novel way.

# 3 Water bowls: This is an exercise I devised to coordinate movement of the forearm with opening of the ribcage and movement in the head in a way that trains the shoulder blade to find its range of motion. There are a lot of elements to it, so watch a couple of times before trying and imagine yourself doing it before you actually try it. Your arm should never be moving on its own as your head stays fixed. The point of this exercise is to free the head and neck movement while forcing the forearm to find it's movement pattern. The balance pods in my hands are merely there to challenge me at the wrist and forearm. Whatever you put into your hands should likewise be something you can balance on the palms of your open hands without grabbing it.