Stop taking things down from above your head

The gap your shoulder tendon runs through measures 7 mm low down and under 4 mm up high.

Most kitchens store the daily mugs on the highest shelf a person can reach. The swap below costs one evening, no equipment, and it takes the reach out of about forty small lifts a week.

⚡ 10-Second Pulse

When does your shoulder bother you most?

👆 Reaching up 🌙 At night 🙂 Not sore yet

The supraspinatus tendon passes through a slot between the top of your arm bone and the shelf of bone above it. That slot narrows as the arm goes up. In an open-MRI study of 12 healthy volunteers, the smallest gap measured 7.0 mm with the arm at 30 degrees and 3.9 mm at 120 degrees. Lifting the arm above shoulder height nearly halves the space the tendon has to move through.

A second thing stacks on top of the first. An arm weighs roughly 5% of body weight, so a 75 kg person holding one out straight is already supporting about 4 kg before touching the casserole dish. Height narrows the slot, distance from the body multiplies the load, and the top shelf asks for both at once.

In 1,886 Danish men, every extra 1% of the working day spent with the upper arm above 90 degrees was linked to 23% higher odds of supraspinatus tendinitis. A 2019 meta-analysis put work above 90 degrees at roughly 2.4 times the odds of rotator cuff tendinopathy. Those figures come from job sites, not kitchens. What carries over is the pattern: height plus time, repeated for years.

7.0 mm

gap at 30 degrees

3.9 mm

gap at 120 degrees

2.4x

odds, work above 90

You cannot lower the cupboards. You can change what lives in them, and that is the whole swap.

Slide it to the edge first. When something must come down from high up, step in close, get a hand on it, and slide it to the front lip of the shelf. Then take the weight with your elbow near your ribs. The version that loads the shoulder hardest is a straight arm lifting at full stretch. One flag: pain that wakes you at night, or an arm that will not reach shoulder height at all, is a doctor’s appointment rather than a storage problem.

✅ The 10-Minute Fix

Go and open the kitchen cupboard now. Name the three things you take down most days: the mugs, the kettle, the everyday plates. Move all three to a shelf between hip and chest height, and send the party glasses and the once-a-year roasting tin up top in their place. Then do one cupboard in the bathroom. Ten minutes, once, and those reaches are gone for good.

I’m trying this → Join today’s streak

More Shoulder Wins

●	Point your chest at it. Reaching out to the side loads the shoulder more than reaching in front of you. Turn your feet so your chest faces the shelf before your hand leaves your side.
●	Lower the washing line. Drop the airer or the line by a notch so your hands work below shoulder height. Same load of washing, arm stays under 90 degrees for every peg.
●	Use a two-step stool. Standing 40 cm higher turns an overhead reach into a chest-height one. Keep the stool in the kitchen, not the garage, or you will skip it.

Quick Vote

Which high shelf is the worst one in your house?

☕ Kitchen cupboard

👕 Top of the wardrobe

From the Mailbag

“I am five foot two. Every shelf in this flat is above my head, and I rent, so I cannot move a thing.”

Maureen, 63

You do not need to move the fittings, Maureen, only what sits inside them. Height is relative to you, so a two-step stool solves most of it: at 40 cm up, the shelf that sat over your head now sits at your chest and your arm never passes 90 degrees. Keep the stool out where you cook. For the shelves you still cannot reach standing on it, put things you touch twice a year, and use a worktop or a low drawer for anything daily.

Got an ache question? I read every one.

Ask me anything →

Keep moving,

The Ache Report

P.S. Sort by weight as well as by frequency. A cast iron pot stored overhead comes down at the angle where the shoulder has least room and at the reach where it carries most load. Heavy goes low, light goes high, whatever you use it for.

Was today useful? One click tells me everything.

👍 Loved it 😐 It was OK 👎 Not for me

Stop taking things down from above your head

Keep Reading