Lesson 1 • Serratus Anterior
Chapter 3, Lesson 1 • Slow and Steady with the Serratus: Patience and Persistence in Yoga Practice with Serratus Anterior Stabilization & Activation Workshop
Foundation First: As we’ve seen throughout this training, when we pay attention to our silent foundation, the movement above it becomes both more stable and stronger. As the yogic tradition has always reminded us, the stronger one’s foundation, the larger the experience above it we can build. Because when it comes to the shoulders and arms, we all want to be stronger, but we have to keep looking beneath the surface to find the source of that strength. For example, The National Academy of Sports Medicine writes that “It’s been estimated that shoulder strength is increased by up to 24% with appropriate scapular stabilization,” this means that the ability of our scapula’s to maintain a connection to our rib cage as they move determines 25% of their strength. Similarly, being able to maintain our inner connection while moving through our external lives has a significant impact on our overall experience of our strength in life. As Swami Rudrananda taught, when we can bring a majority of our attention inside, we become much more effective in our external lives, ie. Stronger.
The strength of Devotion: Hanuman is a symbol of strength in the yogic tradition, often pictured with bulging muscles in battle, or carrying a mountain as he flies across the ocean. He is also an image of devotion, though, kneeling with hands held in prayer, or carrying Ram and Lakshman on his shoulders. These two concepts go hand in hand in the yogic tradition, as Swami Rudrananda teaches, the ‘Wish to Grow’ is the strongest force in the universe— and that’s not a metaphor, but a metaphysical reality. Hanuman is one way that the yogic tradition has embodied this teaching within the historical pantheon as well as giving us a pathway to that level of devotion and strength within ourselves through Hanuman mantra and practice.
Hanuman’s strength often catches our attention, but the devotional source of that strength is even more awe inspiring. After his epic journeys and battles with Ram that comprised the Ramayana, and peace had been established across the world, Ram told all of his followers to return home and resume their practice in their lives. Hanuman was sad to go, but knew it was time. Sita, seeing his incredible devotion, gave him a precious necklace— and Hanuman started to bite the rocks in half— everyone there was appalled by his actions, and Sita exclaimed, ‘what are you doing hanuman,’ to which he replied, I’m just trying to find Rama. The other followers in the room laughed, and teased Hanuman about his devotion, saying that he was a little overt the top— saying that if he really had that much love for Ram then to show it. To which Hanuman literally opened his own chest, revealing a shrine to Ram and Sita in his heart. Its a bit of a gorey image, but its one that has been passed down for thousands of years, so you gotta open to it. There is a great song by MC Yogi that tells this same story…
Hanuman Ji, there's nobody is greater / but sometimes
Homie you have funny behavior / Once when Sita gave
You a necklace / you bit it with your teeth like it
Was your breakfast / then Sita asked "Hanuman what
Was wrong with the mala" / you replied that you were
Just tryin to find Rama / then someone said "Hanuman
Is Ram inside of you" / and in that moment you revealed
Your Truth / you tore open your chest and inside your
Heart / Ram was shining like a diamond inside the dark
/ you said when your separate that's when you serve
/ but when your connected you and Ram merge / chanting
Jai Jai Ram with the cymbals in your hand / going on
And on like a one man band / singing Shri Ram Jai Ram
Jai Jai Ram / going on and on till the break of dawn
Targeting the Serratus and Low Traps: So as the science of the shoulder and the science of yoga teach, our strength is in our foundation. When we look at the shoulders themselves, we see that there is often a source to their disconnection from their stability which we can target in our yoga practice to improve our foundation. Revisiting and going a little further with the earlier quote, we see that National Association of Sports Medicine concludes that “In many cases the lower trapezius and the serratus anterior muscles are found to be weak and/or underactive in individuals with scapular dyskinesis.” Scapular Dyskinesis refers to a deviation in the normal resting or active position of the scapula during shoulder movement— resulting in a ‘winging’ of the shoulder blades away from the rib cage. This would be like the surfboard leaving the wave, it would lose its stability. When we lose our foundation, we lose our strength.
Traps and Serratus in Rhythm: As we can see in this diagram from the Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy, we can see the incredible impact of these two muscles, the traps and serratus, in rotating our scapulas when moving the shoulder and arm. We spent a significant amount of time in our previous lesson isolating and awakening the mid and lower traps as a means of integrating our scapula with the skeleton. We now turn our attention to the other key player, the Serratus Anterior, which we see at the lower edge of the scapula in this diagram. From another angle, we can get an even clearer idea of the role of the Serratus Anterior, which might explain why NASM concluded that when these muscles aren’t performing well, the shoulder blade loses its proximity to the rib cage, winging, and the movement is inefficient and unstable, which decreases the strength of the joint and makes it prone to injury or discomfort.
Activating the Lower Traps: We have already spent time working with our lower trapezius muscles in this training for just this purpose. In our second class, we discussed the causes and effects of forward head posture— the upper traps begin to not only do the work of turning and articulating the head, but also the work of holding the head up in general— which should be accomplished by the lower traps, as well as other key muscles such as Splenius Capitis and Sternocleidomastoid.
The result of this recruitment is that the lower traps turn off, or atrophy, and the upper traps work over-time, resulting in a sore neck at first, and then a slow slide into kinks and injuries as gravity, weight and time take their toll. As the upper traps double down on their upward pull on the scapulas, and the lower traps remain offline, the scapulas themselves are pulled further and further forward, creating a slouched posture that perpetuates itself. Lower trap activation both unloads the neck and upper traps, but also resets the scapular-thoracic junction in order to allow for scapular glide and stability along the ribs. To this end we incorporated a shoulder smear Bridge posture to break up crystallization, as well as concentric and eccentric Lower trapezius exercises. Feel free to glance back at that material and re-incorporate it into your daily practice.
Finding the Serratus Anterior: The Serratus Anterior— a serrated muscle, originating on ribs 1-9 and inserting on the medial border of the scapula, looks much like a bird’s wings— which fits very well with our theme of scapular stabilization being the key to soaring in our shoulders. The serratus anterior attaches to the anterior side of our scapula, the front facing side. If your ribs and scapula were bread, then picture the serratus anterior as the peanut butter holding them together. It is easy to palpate between the pectoralis major and latissimus dorsi muscles— these two muscles from the front and back of your arm pit, if you bring a finger tip to the bottom of your arm pit, where they meet, you will be feeling the portion of the rib cage that the serratus anterior attaches. As we learn how to activate the serratus anterior in a moment, you will be able to do a one handed plank at the wall and feel the serratus come on. As we saw earlier, weakness here leads to shoulder winging and disfunction as well.
Slow and Steady with the Serratus: The serratus muscle is a deep muscle of the shoulder, and activating it takes patience and sensitivity. It is the kind of muscle that takes time to find, and then focus to re-find as you attempt to incorporate it more and more into your practice. Like our deep core, it is not the kind of muscle you would try to bulk up in isolation, but something you would want to strengthen as you move through different angles and body weighted positions. In the beginning, we will isolate the serratus anterior, but there’s no need to over-do it. This is a long term goal that has to do with working well with our shoulders over time.