The shoulder is the most flexible joint in the body. It's truly amazing that with the way it was designed, there aren't more injuries and dislocations that occur. If you compared it to it's cousin, the hip joint, you can see how it's truly exposed. The hip has much more 'form' closer, aka it sits in a bony space that keeps the hip where it is. The shoulder doesn't have that.

Because of that, it's the soft tissues' (muscles as opposed to bones) job to create stability. So you need proper muscle function for a truly healthy shoulder.

Here's the problem:

Extended exercise, sleeping with your arm over your head, or just poor nutrition can cause decreased oxygen deliverance to the soft tissues of your shoulder, which leads to adhesion (fibrotic buildup) of certain muscles which will cause a shift in the 'centration' (the ability to stay centered) of the shoulder joint. That's why you feel pinching or tightness in your shoulder muscles around the joint. The muscles aren't doing their job to control the shoulder.

Also:

Most people don't realize the contribution of the thoracic spine (upper back) on shoulder motion. During an overhead movement like reaching overhead, the thoracic spine has a great deal of extension (or backward movement) that allows the shoulders to go back. Without thoracic extension, all the stress of the overhead movement goes right on that shoulder. The problem is that people don't typically address thoracic extension so deficiency is extremely widespread. There are plenty of manual therapies, correction exercises, and stretches that one can learn to address thoracic extension deficiencies. We'll be going over that during the video exercise section.

So what do we need to do?

You have a number of options.

Number one- if the shoulder is already in pain, you should first consider medical intervention. I recommend a manual therapist (chiropractor/message therapist/physical therapist) that does soft tissue techniques such as Active Release Technique (ART) or Graston technique to restore the elastic properties of the muscle to normalize the 'centration' or alignment of the shoulder.

But that requires going to a doctor

Number two - If you aren't able to go to a doctor, then you could utilize corrective exercises. Our goal is to do three things:

1. Increase upper back and torso flexibility to decrease inappropriate movement of the shoulder girdle.
2. Increase shoulder girdle and shoulder blade stability and control to provide a solid foundation for the shoulder to move.
3. Increase the flexibility of the shoulder joint itself, and improve the balance of muscles in the area.