Rotator Cuff Injury Exercises

Rotator Cuff Injury Exercises

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The rotator cuff is probably the most important joint in your body, as all your upper body movement will suffer if you have got pain when moving your shoulders. First we should look at what makes up your rotator cuff and the many tendons attached so that it can move your arm.

The various tendons that are directly connected to the rotator cuff all pass underneath the bony cuff area as they attach the top or near the top of the arm bone. They then join together which form a cuff that is surrounding the shoulder joint. All of this provides the stability required by the joint allowing movement of the arm bone directly onto the shoulder bone.

Any pain or weakness or even stiffness in the shoulder is usually as a result of overuse or an injury and causes inflammation. These problems are called Rotator cuff tendonitis, when you get irritation and swelling of the main tendons. However one can also get a more serious problem like a rotator cuff tear, where one or all of the tendons is actually torn away because of a direct injury or overuse.

There are certain stretching and resistance band exercises that one can do in order to strengthen your rotator cuff in order to avoid any injury. It is strongly advised that you first see your doctor to establish that you have not torn the precious tendon which is obviously a lot more serious.

Stretching is vitally important to avoid injury when lifting a heavy weight and there are many different kinds of stretches that you can do like isolating the back of your shoulder called posterior stretching. The anterior stretch is when your hand is up your back and this would be isolating the anterior deltoid tendon of the rotator cuff.

The others are called pendulum exercises and wall stretches all of which are freely shown online so you can see how to do these stretches. Although the obvious way to increase the strength of your shoulder and your rotator cuff is to lift weights you will need to start again slowly from scratch if you have a rotator cuff injury that you are dealing with.

The following exercises will directly isolate your rotator cuff and start to strengthen it. If you are insure on exactly how to perform the exercise you should take a look online as all the information is freely available. It is strongly advised that you purchase some training bands so you can work it at home.

The first exercise is the internal rotation exercise, which is done with a band and isolates the medial tendon of the rotator cuff. The next is the external rotation exercise also done with a band and you will now be isolating the lateral tendon as well as the deltoid muscles.

Doing isometric shoulder exercises is strongly suggested as this will directly improve the neuromuscular pathways that connect to the deltoid muscles and the rotator cuff. When you start getting stronger and feeling less pain you can either train at home or at your gym.

Movements like wall push-ups and doing shoulder blade retraction without the bands for your scapular is also going to strengthen the rotator cuff tendons just like doing the arm reach movement that will isolate the extremities of the rotator cuff tendons.

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