| Earlier this year I tore my rotator cuff. I enjoy being | | | | that the muscle could heal. Fairly straight forward, the |
| active and found this particular injury unbelievably | | | | procedure takes about twenty minutes and I would be |
| frustrating. Okay, I shouldn't have lifted the desk without | | | | out of hospital the same day. |
| some help but I'm fairly impatient and have done things | | | | Being in the UK, nothing is that simple and I had a three |
| like this loads of time before without any problem. | | | | month wait for surgery, so while I was waiting I started |
| I felt a pop in my shoulder and that was the start of | | | | researching and discovered that the majority of |
| months of misery | | | | shoulder injuries are cured with rest and exercise so I |
| What I succeeded in doing on that perfectly ordinary | | | | thought I'd give it a try. |
| day was tear one of the muscles in my rotator cuff. | | | | My road to recovery started with three weeks of rest. |
| As a result of the tear it became inflamed and as a | | | | During that three weeks I kept my shoulder moving |
| result of the inflammation I ended up with a shoulder | | | | with passive exercises and let the bruising and |
| impingement. To be precise, my supraspinatus muscle | | | | inflammation from the injury calm down. Once the pain |
| was getting pinched by the acromion which is part of | | | | had subsided I started exercising very gently using |
| my collar bone. Each time the muscle got pinched it | | | | shoulder specific exercises for my rotator cuff, |
| became more inflamed, each extra bit of inflammation | | | | gradually building up in terms of time and resistance |
| meant that it was getting pinched more. It's a vicious | | | | until I now find myself ten weeks on with a shoulder |
| circle and can often end up with surgery being | | | | that seems to be as good as new. The secret was in |
| recommended as the best way forward, which is | | | | the type of exercise. It is important not to do anything |
| what happened in my case. | | | | that causes pain. This was not a frozen shoulder but a |
| The aim was to shave a piece of bone off of my | | | | torn rotator cuff and the types of exercise were |
| collar bone to free up the shoulder impingement so | | | | completely different for the two conditions. |