I may be able to shed some light on this one. One of my many surgeries was a rhomboid muscle and lower trap reattachment by a doctor named Ben Kibler. You can google him but he is considered a guru on the scapula. Doctors at Mayo, Cleveland etc. all know and learn from him. Anyway, activating the lower trap is essential to getting the scapula moving correctly but it is a difficult muscle to train. I do remember one specific exercise that I will try to explain.

Stand beside a kitchen table or something a little lower where your affected side is beside the table. Your arm is hanging on your side with palm facing backward. Your hand then pushes the table with an open faced hand but try to push from the lower trap versus your arm. You really have to try it and feel it in the low trap to understand what I mean. I think the exercise is called a low row or something like that.

Hope that helps.

ill just put a warning out

anyone with pec minor issues (might..aka probably will!!) have major problems doing pushups, including serratus pushups.

you can try it with a pt, but with me, i did this and even then!! could not do these. pushing is very irritating for me

Good for you being proactive in getting help to feel better!

If you don’t mind me asking, what are your pec minor issues? I just started PT and was told that I have tight pec minors but pushups are not a problem for me – probably because I have to do them in the Navy (but I don’t like doing them!).

I was wondering how you are doing today, @hellothere. Were you ever able to return to a computer job? Is the pain gone? Do you do any maintenance?

I realize this is a bit of a necro-thread. Its very difficult to find PT success stories. I followed your forum history and so much of what you went through seems similar to my situation (computer job, elongated transverse processes, pain in shoulder, hand, elbow. Winging in scapula). If you see this, it would be neat if you could reply, even if its months later.