Shoulder Exercises - The Way to a Pain Free Shoulder

By: Nick Bryant Click author's name for more of his/her articles

After damaging my rotator cuff about six months back I have used a lot of my time looking into the subject of shoulder problems and shoulder exercises on the internet and have discovered that exercise alone can fix the vast majority of shoulder problems.

At the end of last year I managed to tear my left rotator cuff. It was a nasty tear and I ended up with a shoulder impingement. Basically one of the tendons became inflamed after I lifted something that was too heavy and pulled one of my rotator cuff muscles. As it becane inflamed it was getting pinched or impinged by my clavicle or collar bone. The pain was bad. Each time that I 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 into the muscle and even cold compresses to reduce the swelling. All of them gave some relief and reduced the symptoms but each time the pain came back and nothing was getting better. In the end I was offered corrective surgery to shave away a small piece of my collar bone to free up the tendon so that it could heal. As I am based in England, with the NHS waiting lists, the operation date was three months away and as I had 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. What I had been doing wrong was to try carrying on as normal which could have injured my arm even further. Once I rested it properly for two weeks I was able to start simple exercises designed to strengthen my rotator cuff muscles. It was bizarre because only a few weeks earlier the thought of doing any kind of shoulder exercise seemed absurd but it worked. It is vital not to feel pain when exercising as 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. The shoulder therapy has not only sorted out my shoulder injury but they also seem to have improved my golf swing, or is that just hopeful thinking?

Why did it work? I think that as we age our stance changes, we don't stand as straight as we used to, we move slightly differently to when we were younger. What I think is that the shoulder exercises have woken up some lazy muscles and changed my posture, only slightly, but enough to free up the problem tendons. Would I recommend exercise as a therapy for a rotator cuff problem?

Definitely! 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 answer I am pain free and feel great. The surgery is postponed indefinitely for the moment.

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: If you want to know how i fixed my torn rotator cuff with justrotator cuff exercises without shoulder surgery that I was told I needed, check out my story at www.myrotatorcuffcure.blogspot.com