Shoulder Exercises - The Way To A Pain Free Shoulder
After damaging my rotator cuff a few months ago I have spent a great deal of my time looking into the subject of shoulder problems and shoulder exercises on the world wide web and have found out that exercise alone can fix the vast majority of shoulder problems.
Towards the end of last year I tore my left rotator cuff. It was a nasty tear and I ended up with a shoulder impingement. Basically one of the tendons got inflamed after I lifted something that was too heavy and tore one of the muscles in my rotator cuff. Because it was inflamed it was getting pinched or impinged by my collar bone. The pain was bad. Each time I moved my shoulder in a particular direction my tendon was getting worn against the bone.
I tried a three month course of Ibuprofen, a steroid injection right into the muscle and cold compresses to reduce the swelling. All of them gave some relief and reduced the symptoms but nothing sorted it out for me. In the end I was offered corrective surgery to shave away a small piece of my collar bone to allow the tendon to move freely letting it heal. Being based in England, with the NHS waiting lists, the surgery was scheduled for three months away and having already suffered three months of pain and discomfort I was reluctant to wait that long.
So I started my research on shoulder injuries and shoulder exercise and discovered that the right sort of exercise can do a lot for rotator cuff problems.
The secret is to rest the arm to start off with and work on the inflammation. My mistake had been to try carrying on as normal which could have damaged my arm even further. Once I rested it properly for two weeks I was able to start basic exercises designed isolate and strengthen my rotator cuff. It was bizarre because only two weeks before the thought of doing any kind of shoulder exercise seemed absurd but it worked. It is important not to experience pain when exercising as any pain indicates that you are damaging the muscles further so I started slowly and built up over five or six weeks until I found myself with a healthy, pain free shoulder that had its full range of movement restored.
Another four weeks on and I have just played my first round of golf this year. The shoulder exercises have not only sorted out my shoulder injury but they also seem to have improved my golf swing, or is that just wishful thinking?
Why did it work? I think that as we get older our posture changes, we don't stand as straight as we used to, we move differently to when we were younger. What I think is that the shoulder exercises have woken up some lazy muscles and changed my posture for the better, only slightly, but enough to free up the problem muscles. Would I recommend exercise as a therapy for a damaged shoulder?
100% Yes! Not every shoulder injury will respond to just exercise. Common sense would say that it must depend on how bad the injury is but ten weeks after I was told that surgery was the only option I am pain free and feel great. The surgery is postponed indefinitely for the moment.
