Most of us like a random shoulder massage. It seems like we have a constant tension in this region. Specifically when we are stressed.
So why the shoulders? Why not the legs, arms or stomach? And where does tension come from, anyway?
In: Biology
In short a combination of, [Bipedalism] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPFW1beLqR0), and [bad posture] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sorp0TUChIY)… holding your upper back muscles in odd positions restricts blood flow and causes knots and tensions to form. Messages increase blood flow, among other things like lymph and serotonin, which release tension. Arm and leg muscles tend to move and stretch more, and have better blood flow… although at the cost of increase joint load. The stomach is part of your vital organs which require a massive amount of blood flow, etc to function, so it is less likely to develop the same symptoms.
~~> I should note, I am not a medical professional, this is just my best understanding of the symptoms you described.
It’s one of the tradeoffs of evolving from 4 legs animal to straight up walking.
Our spine get compressed and our shoulder’s hang all the time so muscles have to work all day whit out support, or movement that release the tension.
On your legs, you instinctively stand on one leg for a wile then on the other, so they Don’t get as stressed.
If there is something that I learned of this pandemic and the enforcement of home office, is that you can “store tension” on your lower back, and the importance of ergonomic office hardware.
So first off I am a Massage Therapist. And this is actually incredibly easy to explain…..physically the pec muscles are just Two muscles one really big (Pec Major) and a smaller (Pec Minor) underneath it… now these muscle really only have one direction they go…..
The back has a few muscle groups yes
Traps, rhomboid, erectors, and the on the scapula you have the infra and supraspinatous teres major minor….anyways you get the just all these muscles have an attachment to pull the shoulders back in some way…… but they are all in different directions and not as strong as the Pec Major…….
Add in the fact that humans are lazy and forward orientated everything we do is in front of us. Forcing the pec muscles to co tract and pull shoulder forward. Then the muscles in back being as weak compared try to pull back and just can’t so they stay locked or get distorted by knots and over stretching.
This is because your arms are almost free-floating. What I mean by this is that the only bone that connects your arms to the rest of your skeleton SKELETALLY are the clavicles. And the clavicles are weak as hell― being the bone most prone to fractures.
What in fact holds your arm to the rest of your body, are muscles. Multitudes of them. The most important of them is the trapezoid. The trapezius originates from the lower-back of your skull and your upper spine (neck and chest) and then inserts into the scapula (mainly) and a bit of the clavicle. The scapula is also a part of the upper extremity― the humerus (bone of the arm) comes and forms the joint with scapula. So essentially it means that the weight of the entirety of your arms are supported by the trapezius muscle.
Now your legs don’t hurt because they are supported by thick bones (femur and tibia) which have a lot of compressive and tensile strength, which muscles don’t have― hence they get fatigued. It’s the same with stomach (supported by the thickest part of the spine, the lumbar vertebrae) and the arms (supported by humerus, radius and ulna). Your arms are supported by the muscles (trapezius mostly) which get fatigued and hence hurt and feel good when massaged. Now guess which muscle forms the bulk of your shoulder?.
Trapezius.
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