There are many causes of shoulder joint pain.  Of course, the most common cause is muscles.  If the muscles in your neck, chest, back or anywhere in the shoulder area are out-of-balance (that means tighter on one side than the other) that can cause pain in your shoulder.

When you look at pictures of a shoulder skeleton you will see that without muscles the whole thing would just fall apart.

Muscles hold skeletons together and they move bones.

Muscles cross over joints.  They attach one bone to another.  That’s how we are able to move.  A muscle moves the bone when we contract (shorten) the muscle.

The muscles of the shoulder area can become  out-of-balance and they can also develop trigger points.

Trigger points are areas of specialized tightness that are very irritable.  The irritable places can cause pain nearby or at a far distance.

Trigger points can make it hard to move your arm, shoulder or shoulder blade properly and so can muscles that are too strong on one side and too weak on the other (out-of-balance.)

Your shoulder has four muscles that are called the rotator cuff muscles.

1. One is packed onto the lower outside 2/3’s of your shoulder blade (infraspinatis.)
2. One is packed into the top of the shoulder blade (supraspinatis.)
3. One is sandwiched between your shoulder blade and your ribs (subscapularis.)
4. The fourth is on the outer side of your shoulder blade and attaches to your arm (terres.)

The rotator cuff muscles keep your arm bone in the socket and allow you to rotate your upper arm.

But those are not the only muscles that can cause shoulder joint pain.  Others can, too.

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