| Never mind waiting until you mess up your shoulder, | | | | Around thirty percent of us will get a rotator cuff |
| start exercising your shoulders before anything goes | | | | problem at some point in our lives. As you age the risk |
| wrong. I'm not talking about pushing weights and | | | | becomes higher so it is well worth exercising these |
| exercising the already dominant muscles, I'm talking | | | | muscles to prevent a shoulder injury. Now there is a |
| about waking up the muscles of the rotator cuff | | | | fair chance that if you are reading this, it is because |
| before they let you down. | | | | my advice has come too late. I didn't even know that |
| I recently damaged one of the muscles in my rotator | | | | these muscles existed until I injured them. Most of us |
| cuff, ended up with a shoulder impingement and | | | | take our bodies for granted until something goes |
| actually got told that I would need surgery to correct it. | | | | wrong. I am no different. |
| It was then that I started to research the subject and | | | | Okay, if you have managed to injure your shoulder |
| discovered that most of us ignore this group of | | | | then shoulder rehabilitation exercises are going to |
| muscles until it is too late, me included. It was shoulder | | | | feature somewhere in the treatment. If you have |
| rehabilitation exercises that enabled me to recover | | | | undergone surgery then the advice is likely to be to get |
| from my rotator cuff injury without surgery. | | | | your shoulder moving as soon as possible to avoid |
| A lot of shoulder rehabilitation exercises are aimed at | | | | loss of movement or frozen shoulder. Obviously, if you |
| the rotator cuff, an important but often neglected | | | | have had surgery then you need to follow your |
| group of muscles simply because they are so key to | | | | doctor's advice on when to start exercise. Shoulder |
| shoulder health. The shoulder joint is a shallow ball and | | | | exercises don't use great weights or resistance. They |
| socket joint held together by seventeen different | | | | tend if anything to use either no weights or very small |
| muscles as well as tendons, ligaments and cartilage. Its | | | | weights and will involve gentle exercise to start with |
| complex make up allows us the wide range of | | | | that gradually build up in terms of difficulty and |
| movement that we enjoy but also leaves the shoulder | | | | frequency until the shoulder has returned to normal. If |
| prone to injury. The rotator cuff is a group of four | | | | you experience pain at any time then you need to |
| muscles which pull the arm into the shoulder and help | | | | stop as this is usually an indication of damage being |
| to prevent dislocation. | | | | inflicted. |
| The rotator cuff can become weak, through injury, | | | | But before you start to exercise a damaged shoulder |
| wear and tear and neglect and when it does, it leaves | | | | let it rest, treat any pain and inflammation but most |
| us more susceptible to many different shoulder injuries. | | | | important of all is to allow it to heal properly. If you |
| Just a few simple exercises aimed at this group of | | | | ignore shoulder pain you are almost certainly going to |
| muscles can dramatically improve your shoulder health | | | | make the situation worse. A pulled or slightly damaged |
| in as little as ten minutes a day. | | | | muscle that is ignored can result in a major injury |
| Even if the rotator cuff is healthy, strengthening it will | | | | needing surgery and months of rehab. Better still, look |
| improve the overall performance of your shoulders. If | | | | after your shoulders before they let you down and |
| you do lift weights you'll find that if you strengthen the | | | | whatever you do keep up the exercises after your |
| rotator cuff, you will be able to lift higher weights. | | | | shoulder is fixed. |