When I was in grad school, I had to sit in front of my laptop for hours on end. Eventually, I developed a nagging pain between the shoulder blades. I tried stretching it, rolling on a ball, worked on my posture, but nothing seemed to alleviate it. It wasn’t until I graduated and no longer had to spend as much time sitting in front of the computer that it went away. Now that I'm an older, wiser physio, I know how to fix it. 

The reason those muscles get painful is because they are becoming ischemic. Ischemia means lacking oxygen which happens from lack of blood flow. That slouched, seated position places the scapular muscles on a low load, long term stretch. That’s what reduces blood flow to the tissues. Remember, pain is your body’s request for change. It has sensed there’s an issue in those muscles and it’s trying to cue you to move and restore normal blood flow. Simply squeezing your shoulder blades together for 100 reps or so may be enough to get you through your work day. However, there are a few exercises you should do for a longer term fix. 

Making those muscles stronger means they will have a greater capacity for the demand you place upon them. The ideal is to not sit for so long, and taking breaks or using a stand up desk will be helpful. But, life happens and that’s the reality for most of us. We have to do a lot of seated work. So getting those tissues stronger and more resilient will be beneficial. Here’s a simple exercise that will help with that.

This part of the spine (thoracic) tends to get stiff. The shape of that part of the spine is called kyphosis, and being seated leads to an increase in kyphotic posture. So going the opposite way into extension, or what we call reverse posture, can be beneficial.

It’s important to note that this is not the cause of all scapular pain. There is also referred pain from organs. So if these exercises do not help, see your trusted medical provider.