Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

Do you feel pain or tingling numbness in your arms and fingers? One possible cause could be Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. Due to bad and/or repetitive working posture, tight muscles could be compressing on the nerves at your collarbone region, which might lead to pain in the shoulders, and especially the arms and fingers.

As you can see from the picture, tight neck (scalenes) muscles and/or chest (pectoralis minor) muscles may compress the  nerves behind them, and this tend to result in shoulder, arm and/or finger pain.

Neck (Scalenes) Muscle Stretch

It is very easy to stretch the neck muscle. Simply put one hand over the head and pull the head to the side. Hold for 15 secs, and perform 3 sets.

Because the Scalenes muscle elevates the ribs during inhalation, the stretch will be more effective if you exhale and keep the ribs low to increase the stretching distance.

Chest (Pec Minor) Release

Pec Minor muscle is a bit difficult to stretch on your own. Typical chest stretches target mainly the Pec Major muscle, which lies in front of the Pec Minor.

An effective way to release the tightness in the Pec Minor muscle is to use a simple Tennis Ball. Locate the Pec Minor muscle below the further end of the collarbone (near the shoulder), and position the tennis ball there. Apply pressure by leaning into the wall.

If the pain in your arms or shoulders are due to Thoracic Outlet Syndrome as described, you should see improvements after relieving the 2 neck and chest muscles as described above.