I can not retract my shoulder blades / scapula / lats

whenever i do pullups or inverted rows or chinups i can not ever retract my shoulder blades, scapula, or lats. I think it is because all I did was pushups for years and constantly progressed on those and did not focus on pulling as much. 

What should i do to fix this? 

Whenever I do back exercises the next day my upper back hurts a little because i can not retract the muscles properly.

Just a few clarifications, first:

The shoulder blades and scapulae are the same thing. Just different names.

Retraction refers to the movement of scapula, not the movement of  the muscle that attaches to the scapula. So the lat doesn't retract. The scapula retracts, and the muscles used in this movements are the mid trapezius fibres, the rhomboids major, and rhomboids minor.

Anyways, in a pulling movement the objective isn't to retract fully, otherwise the lats would shorten too much and hinder contraction.

If your upper back is sore around the mid traps, it probably means that those muscles have been worked...

Post some videos of your pulling movements and we can see if you are a) doing the movements correctly and b) what you need to work on

Check out these two links.  They've helped me tremendously.  The first is ido portal's scapular mobilization routine, and the second is coaches wall extensions. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4Wo095zPnc

 

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/846-wall-extensions/

 

Hope that is helpful for you.

Wait, so you can't retract at all? Try hanging in a pullup and / or row position and retracting your scapula.  Keep your arms straight, focus only on movement from the shoulder blades.  If you can get movement, just remember to start every pullup / row with this same movement.

Look for these videos in youtube to strengthen your scapular retractors:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKYMuMWxV5A  and:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALzXKe2GCpc. Start with the first one, hope it helps!