This site has exercises for lower traps and serratus: http://fixtheneck.com/

I find prone cobras good for the lower traps and push up plus for serratus (I do a lot of these).
Though both put a load on the neck.

I have a concern about "strengthening" neck muscles w/TOS.

If you try to do so and those muscles are already over firing from nerves or spasms it won't do any good and may make things much worse..

I would only attempt to strengthen when all muscles are relaxed and not in spasms.

In the trigger point sticky thread there is more info about it-
If a muscle has trigger points/spasms - you cannot accomplish much until all of those are resolved..
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread125577.html

Passive stretching that allows the shoulders to relax & drop was very helpful for me - images here-
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/album.php?albumid=422

Hiker thanks!! Have the pushups with a plus helped? My wrists are too weak or painful to do them. I end up being on my knuckles and my form sucks.

Jomar I tried trp therapy once I guess I need to restart. It's done relatively little for me as my dominant muscles overpower the weak ones causing all the pain. I am trying to kick start the ones which are weak. Trp could be a usefull adjunct...even dry needling had some limited use.

the one thing that did help though was a kneading type massage vs the relatively painful - find a muscle and fix its trp stuff. on a trip to asia, i had a massage for 15 mins and wow, almost a weeks worth of pain was wiped out.

the reason this board is amazing is all the experiences shared. my efforts to stretch out on a foam roll were a flop and then i realized hiker mentioning his nerve pain in lower back being aggravated was the same as mine. i probably have a disc issue in the lower back as well while had a previous injury as well.

so yeah, i guess you have a point and i should find a trp therapist.

anyone tried accupuncture? i was told to try that by 2 PTs.

Is there a ratio which you apply between serratus and lower trap exercises? They are antagonists apparently in terms of location and attachment to shoulder blade.

Let me rephrase - aim is to strengthen the deep neck muscles to take the load off the superficial ones. They are the ones which compress nerves etc. Also, since they are always on, the weaker ones are inhibited. That's part 1.

Part2 is to strengthen the weak back muscles so they dont pull on the neck.

Easier said than done since i am still trying to figure out methods for both of above. For instance, flexion of neck - of any kind, causes me pain. I suspect this is becaue my left side cervical stabilizers are so injured, that the disc bulge presses on nerves and the facet joints also grind together, causing shoulder and arm symptoms plus neck pain.

Since my TOS was caused by trauma, I think this is what happened. Entire sections of my muscles were switched off due to either injury (and CNS recruiting their not so exact replacements). Basically wry neck. One side "loose and floppy - left with deep muscles off' whereas right is completely overactive.

Problem i've run into is stretching doesn't work because its either temporary or causes a stretch reflex. The muscle contracts even more strongly.

Third possibility is deep ligaments etc are damaged hence muscles will always remain in protective spasm. That can only be resolved with surgery or prolotherapy. But even as I run around for diagnostics to confirm the above, I want to give strengthening a chance.

Reason being, I perceive that if you go with a lot of weak stuff and the MRI shows x damage, its easy to say x is the cause of the pain. However, what if strengthening y, which pulls on or stresses x allows pain to go down or gets you to some ok level? Then there is no need for any measures

Hard to tell. They did help strengthen the serratus anterior.
But I think part of my problem was that it (and the lower traps) was not activating to stabilize the scapula when I was moving my arms around and neck muscles were doing all the job.
Here is what I was doing to address this.
1. First learn to activate the muscle in isolation. I found it difficult to do for the serratus. I don't know the proper technique for that I was simply lying on my back trying to pull the scapula to the rib cage and feeling with my hand what gets activated. fixtheneck site shows how to do it with a mirror, but I think you have to be very skinny to see the weak muscles activate.
2. Then train the SA to activate when you raise an arm. Every time you raise an arm you make an effort to activate the serratus and lower traps. After a while this becomes automatic.

No, no ratio.
Yes they are antagonists. Lower trap pulls the scapula down and medially and SA's lower fibers pull it down and laterally. But working together they stabilize the scapula and keep it from winging.

A new member was asking about Edgelow protocol , while searching I also found some videos on top rib , so posted them on that thread, but they might be helpful for this topic also.. if top rib is a problem, you have to address/fix that before working any muscles..
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread231333.html

Very interesting!! How did you do this? Has it worked to reduce pain?

If I relax the scalenes wont ribs pop back into place?