How to strengthen muscles for stable shoulders

By Dana Santas, CNN

(CNN) — When your shoulders ache or feel stiff, your first instinct might be to stretch or massage them. But the real culprit behind most shoulder problems isn’t surface-level tension — it’s more often a lack of shoulder blade stability.

Office workers, professional athletes and older adults face scapular stability challenges for different reasons — prolonged sitting, repetitive overhead movements or age-related muscle weakness, respectively — but the solution involves the same fundamental approach: strengthening the muscles that stabilize and move your shoulder blades.

This article is the fourth in a five-part series on the power of strength training to relieve pain and create ease in movement. We’ve explored how your nervous system positively responds to building strength, your obliques create spinal stability and your inner thighs support your lower body.

Now, we’re focusing on your scapulae — your shoulder blades — and why strengthening the muscles that support them is crucial for healthy shoulders, better posture and a pain-free upper body.

The key muscles behind stable shoulders

Your scapulae are flat, triangular bones that float on the back of your rib cage, anchored only by muscles. Each scapula can move in six different directions: up, down, in toward your spine, and out away from your spine, and they can tilt forward or backward.

This mobility is controlled by several key stabilizing muscles:

• The serratus anterior, located along the sides of your rib cage beneath your armpits, helps your shoulder blades glide up and around your ribs so you can reach forward and overhead.

• The rhomboids and middle trapezius, spanning between your spine and inner edges of your scapulae, bring your shoulder blades together to stabilize and support pulling movements.

• The lower trapezius, found below your shoulder blades and running down your mid-back, draws your scapulae down and back, countering the rounded shoulder posture common in desk workers.

When these muscles are strong and work together properly, your shoulder blades glide smoothly across your back, providing a stable yet mobile platform for your arms to move.

Weak shoulder blades, widespread pain

Without adequate stability, your shoulders lose their proper foundation and alignment, creating a cascade of compensations that lead to pain and increased injury risk.

The most common misalignments are scapular winging, in which the shoulder blades stick out from your back like wings, and forward tilting, where the shoulders round forward. Both limit the shoulder blades’ ability to move smoothly, putting your rotator cuff muscles — the small muscles that stabilize and guide your shoulder joint — at a mechanical disadvantage. Forced to overwork, they are more susceptible to injury, while the altered position of the shoulder blades narrows the space where tendons move, increasing the risk of impingement and pain.

These dysfunctional mechanics don’t stop at the shoulders — they ripple outward, altering your entire upper body alignment. As your shoulders slump, your head shifts forward, creating neck pain and stiffness. Your mid-back rounds to accommodate the upward position of your shoulder blades. And your lower trapezius muscles weaken and strain against the upward pull, leading to backaches and pain around the scapulae.

But there is another factor that can worsen these shoulder blade problems: shallow breathing.

How breathing ties in

Just like with the obliques and adductors covered earlier in this series, your breathing patterns directly influence shoulder mechanics. With a deep inhalation, your rib cage expands, and the serratus anterior supports the scapulae along the ribs during expansion. Long, full exhalations engage the obliques, pulling the lower ribs in and down, to help keep the rib cage properly positioned. In this way, your breathing has the power to give your shoulder blades a stable platform.

But if your breathing is shallow and mostly in your upper chest, your shoulders elevate with every breath, creating compensatory tension in your neck muscles that counteract the function of the scapular stabilizing muscles. Over time, dysfunctional breathing reinforces poor posture and scapular instability.

By practicing proper diaphragmatic breathing while performing scapular strengthening exercises, you improve rib cage alignment, reduce compensations and create a more stable foundation for healthy shoulder movement.

Exercises for scapular strength and mobility

You don’t need heavy weights or fancy equipment to build scapular control. The following exercises can be done with just a wall, a resistance band or your body weight:

Important: Before beginning this or any exercise program, check with your doctor or physical therapist. Stop immediately if you experience pain.

Wall angels: Stand with your back against a wall, feet 6 to 8 inches out and knees slightly bent. Press your lower back, shoulders and the back of your head into the wall. Raise your arms to shoulder height with elbows bent at 90 degrees, keeping elbows and the backs of your hands against the wall.

Inhale as you slowly slide your arms upward until maintaining contact becomes difficult, then exhale as you return to 90 degrees. You should feel the movement between your shoulder blades (rhomboids and middle trapezius), along the sides of your rib cage (serratus anterior) and below your shoulder blades (lower trapezius) as your arms move up and down. Perform six to eight slow reps for two to three sets.

Scapular push-ups: Start in a push-up position with arms straight. To modify, lower to your knees. Without bending your elbows, inhale as you let your chest lower slightly and your shoulder blades come together. Exhale as you press the floor away, spreading your shoulder blades wide apart and focusing on pushing them away from each other.

You should feel the movement between your shoulder blades (rhomboids and middle trapezius) during the lowering phase and along the sides of your rib cage (serratus anterior) during the pressing phase. Repeat for eight to 10 reps, completing two to three rounds.

Banded pull-aparts: Hold a resistance band at chest height with arms extended in front of you, shoulder-width apart. Inhale to prepare, then exhale as you pull the band apart, squeezing your shoulder blades together. You should feel the muscles between your shoulder blades (rhomboids and middle trapezius) engage strongly. Return slowly on an inhale, controlling the resistance. Perform eight to 12 reps for two to three sets.

Prone Y and T lifts: Lie face down with your chin tucked and neck long. Inhale to prepare, then exhale as you lift your arms into a Y shape overhead, then into a T shape out to the sides, keeping your palms down. You should feel the work between and below your shoulder blades (lower trapezius, rhomboids and middle trapezius). Hold each lift for two to three seconds before lowering with control. Do six to eight reps of each shape for two to three rounds.

Focus on movement quality, not quantity. Coordinating your exhales with the pressing, depressing, pulling and lifting phases of these exercises enhances activation of the scapular stabilizing muscles and reinforces proper rib cage alignment.

Like the obliques and inner thighs, the scapulae remind us that strength isn’t just about surface-level muscles — it’s about deeper systems of control and support. Training these overlooked muscles reduces pain, improves posture and helps you move through life with greater ease.

In the final article of this series, we’ll bring it all together by focusing on the role of breath as the bridge connecting these stabilizing systems to help your nervous system integrate the strength and stability we’ve been building throughout your body.

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