Injury blog: Winging of the shoulder blades

Hey everyone! We hope you are keeping well. We’re carrying on with life as close to normal as possible, so here is your monthly reading material. Perfect time for a tea or coffee we say! This month we’re taking a close look at the shoulder, specifically a condition that affects the shoulder blade. Do you have, or have you ever seen someone whose shoulder blades stick out on theirback and look a little bit like wings? This condition is aptly named ‘winging’of the shoulder blades.

Anatomy

Osteopaths love a bit of anatomy! The shoulder blade or ‘scapula’is a largely flat bone that sits on the back of the rib cage and is an important ingredient in what makes up the various joints of the shoulder. As well as the larger flat part, a few extra lumps and bumps makes for a very odd shaped bone when looked at in isolation. One of the bony protrusions actually makes up the ‘socket’ part of the ball and socket joint in the shoulder. The ‘ball’ part being made from the head of the upper arm bone (aka the ‘humerus’).

Interesting fact… There are 18 muscle attachments on the shoulder blade. It is through fine balancing of these muscles which keeps the shoulder blade stabilised and flush to the back of rib cage, and allows us to move our shoulders through an extremely large range of motion. As you can imagine, keeping all of these muscles in full working order takes a bit of co-ordination. And with so many players involved, there is room for dysfunction to creep in and movement to become affected. Sometimes the dysfunction is great enough to cause the shoulder blade to flip outwards from the rib cage, and this is what we refer to as ‘winging’.

Causes of winging

The causes of shoulder blade winging can be broadly broken down into:

• Muscular: As we previously mentioned, lots of muscles are responsible for controlling the position and movement of the shoulder blade. Injury to these muscles, or an imbalance in the strength, length and function of the muscles over a prolonged period may lead to this issue. The main muscles involved here are the Serratus Anterior (a muscle which a