Shoulder Pain When Reaching Across My Body: What It Means & How Physical Therapy Can Help
If you’ve ever reached across your body to grab your seatbelt or scratch your back, were stopped because of shoulder pain, and immediately Googled “shoulder pain when reaching across my body,” you’re not alone.
It can be incredibly frustrating to have simple tasks like these cause pain, interrupt life, and hold you back from being active. And because you use your arms for so many activities in day-to-day life, shoulder pain can make the mental load of daily tasks so much greater.
Shoulder pain when reaching across your body is something I see in a lot of the patients I work with, and while it can be discouraging, it’s very treatable with the right guidance.
In this blog, we’ll explore what might be happening in your shoulder that’s causing pain when you reach across your body and what you can do about it.
Why do I have shoulder pain when reaching across my body?
The most common causes of shoulder pain when reaching across your body
How a physical therapist helps diagnose your shoulder pain when reaching across your body
What you can do at home to ease shoulder pain
When shoulder pain is a sign to see a physical therapist
How physical therapy in Bend, OR can help shoulder pain
Let's start by looking at why reaching across your body can trigger shoulder pain.
Why do I have shoulder pain when reaching across my body?
Some of the most common movements you do on a daily basis that might trigger shoulder pain include:
Reaching for a seatbelt, purse, or backpack
Rolling over in bed
Sleeping on your side
Playing pickleball or other racket sports
Swinging a golf club
Weight lifting
Activities that require stabilizing through your hands like mountain biking, yoga, gymnastics
With all of these motions, the shoulder joint is “closing” down.
Basically, you’re putting stress on the joint between your collarbone, your shoulder blade, and your upper arm bone (your humerus), and decreasing the space where the tendons of your shoulder muscles sit and the space for the structures that cushion your shoulder.
While that might sound scary, I want to assure you that shoulder pain when reaching across your body responds well to physical therapy treatment.
The most common causes of shoulder pain when reaching across your body
1. Acromioclavicular (AC) joint irritation
The acromioclavicular joint is the joint between your collarbone and your shoulder blade. It’s an important joint because it’s the one bony link between your shoulder and your midline skeletal structure.
When you move your arm in a cross-body motion, the end of your collarbone and shoulder blade come closer together. If your AC joint is irritated, this compressive stress can cause pain at the front and top of your shoulder.
Symptoms of AC joint irritation are usually located at the top and/or front of your shoulder, can feel sharp or achy, and might be tender to touch.
Common motions and activities that cause AC joint pain:
Reaching across your body or overhead
Lying on your painful shoulder
Heavy bench press or overhead press
Activities like mountain biking, yoga, and racket sports
Occupations that require prolonged and repetitive reaching overhead (construction, painting, etc.)
2. Rotator cuff tendon irritation
The rotator cuff is a group of 4 muscles (supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, subscapularis) that provide stability to your shoulder and allow it to move through its large ranges of motion.
When all the muscles of the rotator cuff are working well together, they keep the ball (the top of your upper arm) in the socket (your shoulder blade) allowing your arm to move in space without irritation.
If they’re not working well together, the ball doesn’t stay centered in the socket and this can cause pinching or compression on the tendons of the rotator cuff.
Another cause of irritation to the rotator cuff tendons is poor mobility or control of the shoulder blade.
Range of motion at the shoulder blade is responsible for one-third of the total motion of your shoulder, so if it’s stiff or the muscles around your shoulder blade are weak, it can lead to extra strain on your rotator cuff and cause irritation.
The motions and activities that primarily stress the rotator cuff tendons include:
Reaching overhead
Reaching out to the side
Sleeping on your painful shoulder
Lifting a heavy load out to the side
Sport-related activities like throwing a ball, racket sports, mountain biking
3. Shoulder impingement
Shoulder impingement, also known as subacromial pain syndrome, can cause shoulder pain when reaching across your body.
Some of the primary causes of subacromial pain syndrome include:
Slouched posture - when your shoulder blades round forward it narrows the space between the shoulder blade and the upper arm bone
Shoulder joint stiffness - tight connective tissue can impact how the ball moves in the socket leading to poor movement patterns
Shoulder blade mobility - stiffness in any direction can create impingement patterns
Shoulder blade strength - weak or uncoordinated muscles can lead to altered movement patterns
4. Labral irritation
Irritation of the labrum, the cartilage that deepens the shoulder socket and provides more passive stability to the shoulder, is another possibility that could cause pain with reaching across your body.
You might consider labral irritation a possibility when:
You have persistent deep, aching pain that may be intermittently sharp with lifting, reaching across your body, reaching behind your back, or putting on a jacket
You have painful catching, clicking, or locking in your shoulder
Your shoulder feels weak or unstable
5. Nervous system sensitivity (aka: pain doesn’t always equal damage)
You may at times have pain in your shoulder when reaching across your body and can’t recall an injury - traumatic or overuse related - that would have caused your pain.
What I often see with my patients is this type of unexplained pain happens when their nervous system capacity is overloaded.
You may be in a period of life where:
Stress is high
You’ve been sick
You’ve increased your training intensity
You’re not recovering well (sleep, nutrition, hydration)
In these circumstances, it’s common for your nervous system to be more sensitive and protective, triggering a pain response even without tissue injury.
In short: pain does not always equal a tissue injury and a tissue injury does not always equal pain.
To read more about how your nervous system and stress influence pain, head to my blog Does Stress Cause Pain in the Body? How Your Nervous System Links Stress to Pain
How a physical therapist helps diagnose your shoulder pain when reaching across your body
When it comes to figuring out what’s causing your shoulder pain, it’s helpful to see a movement specialist like a physical therapist.
When I work with patients to treat their shoulder pain, we explore
What was happening in their life when their pain started
Whether pain began after a specific injury or came on gradually over time
Life stressors surrounding the onset of pain
Activities, exercise, or preferred movement practices
Their stage of life
Then we assess:
Range of motion of the neck, mid-back, ribs, shoulder blade, and shoulder
Strength and coordination of the shoulder and shoulder blade complex
Passive mobility of the shoulder joint, shoulder blade, neck, and mid-back
Soft tissue mobility (muscles and fascia)
Sitting and standing posture
Nervous system contributors like tension patterns and irritability
We might discuss when getting an image of their shoulder would be indicated.
What you can do at home to ease shoulder pain
I get it! Sometimes you just want a few tools to try on your own to see if they will help your shoulder pain before you schedule with your physical therapist or doctor.
Here are a few things you might try to see if they help shift your pain:
Gentle range-of-motion exercises
Motion is lotion for all of your joints, so keeping your shoulder moving through tolerable range of motion is important for joint health.
Try:
Table slides
Wall walks
Assisted flexion (reaching overhead) lying on your back
Shoulder rotation
Shoulder blade circles.
Gentle strengthening
Muscle contraction helps activate, coordinate, and strengthen tissues while bringing fresh, nutrient-dense, oxygenated blood to the tissues that help with healing.
Isometric exercises are typically well-tolerated in the initial stages of a painful shoulder. Make sure you keep pain ≤ 4/10 and make sure it returns to baseline immediately after exercise or within 24 hours.
Modify painful positions temporarily
One of the things my patients often do is check to see if their shoulder is still painful when reaching across their body.
When they do this, they continue to irritate the tissue.
I always remind my patients that, inevitably, during daily activities they’ll move their shoulder in a way that it will tell them if it’s still irritated. They don’t need to intentionally check in.
I also like to use the idea of a stop light to help guide what motions are good to continue and which ones you might need to adjust.
Pain 0-3/10: green light - you’re good to continue on
Pain 4-5/10: yellow light - you might want to consider decreasing range of motion, decreasing stress on the shoulder, or adjusting your movement pattern
Pain 6/10 or higher: red light - you’re not necessarily doing damage, but you might be causing more irritation to your shoulder, so I recommend making changes to activities, positions, etc. to reduce pain
Heat vs. ice
When it comes to deciding if you should use heat or ice, most of the time I say pick the one that feels best for you!
Heat can feel really good on your shoulder if it’s feeling tight or achy, while ice is a great tool for pain management.
When shoulder pain is a sign to see a physical therapist
It’s great to have your own self-management tools to reduce your shoulder pain, but there are times when I would recommend seeing a physical therapist for more support.
Here are some signs it’s time to schedule a PT appointment:
Pain lasting > 2–3 weeks
Difficulty sleeping due to pain
Pain limiting daily or recreational movement
Feeling unsure or anxious about the cause of your shoulder pain
How physical therapy in Bend, OR can help shoulder pain
When I work with people who have shoulder pain when reaching across their body, I take a holistic, whole-person approach to care.
We determine:
What’s causing your pain
What activities you need to modify
What activities you can continue
How to gradually reintroduce activities
How to build mindful awareness of movement patterns
Your treatment, whether it’s your exercise program or hands-on care, is always individualized and intentionally designed to help you get back to meaningful activities.
Where to find physical therapy for helping shoulder pain when reaching across your body
Shoulder pain when reaching across your body doesn’t have to limit your life.
If you’re in or near Bend, Oregon, I can help you with personalized physical therapy treatment to relieve your shoulder pain.
You can get started by learning more about my physical therapy services in Bend, OR or by getting in touch with me.
If you have questions, I’d love to connect, hear how your shoulder pain is impacting your well-being, answer your questions, and see how I can help.
You can schedule a free consultation here.
Disclaimer: this post is intended for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. If you are experiencing pain, it is always in your best interest to consult with your medical doctor and/or your physical therapist.
