Wondering What The Best Shoulder Pain Exercises Are?
As a longtime Austin personal trainer, one of the more common questions I tend to get is about shoulder pain. It’s a very common affliction in the health and fitness world, as well as in greater society as well. It doesn’t take much to injure the shoulder area, as it’s a relatively small joint, and very complex in it’s makeup. People often ask what the best shoulder pain exercises are to perform in order to alleviate pain in the region, but I generally tend to take a different approach. I usually prefer preventative maintenance through stretching and exercise, as opposed to weight lifting as a cure.
There are as many shoulder pain exercises as there are reasons for having shoulder pain to begin with, so for me to sit here and recommend a bunch of shoulder pain exercises is more of an exercise in futility than a restorative exercise. Starting with the basics, you need to know what exactly is ailing the shoulder. Is it a rotator cuff injury? The supraspinatus, one of the rotator cuff’s 4 components, is the most commonly injured part of the shoulder region and it’s rehabilitation is no small matter. If you did, for example, injure the supraspinatus, what exactly did you do to it? Is it torn? Detached fully, or a macro tear? Perhaps it’s a labral issue instead? Perhaps it’s an impingement of the infraspinatus? The point being, that an accurate diagnosis is essential if you want to devise an effective recovery plan.
One of the shoulder pain exercises that I fully advocate, is the rotator cuff dumbbell exercise wherein you place your arms like a football goal post, and while keeping your arms retracted, push your hands forward so as to place your forearms parallel with the ground. Obviously, this should be done with extremely light weight, if any at all. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be done as a fix to a pre existing condition. This is a way to stretch and lengthen some of the rotator cuff muscles, while simultaneously strengthening them. Another one of the great shoulder pain exercises is when we place our arms in the starting position of the aforementioned exercise, and then move the entire arm medially, towards the center of the body, so as to bring the elbow in line with the center of the chest, all the while keeping the hands in a vertical position.
If you have shoulder pain, the first thing you need to do is ascertain if there’s an injury, or a simple tightness and perhaps a subsequent impingement. The latter is very treatable on a basic level, while the former, is far more involved. Stretching and incorporating some corrective flexibility therapy on a regular basis, while maintaining proper form in your lifts, goes a long way towards preventing shoulder area pain. When there’s a tightness, lay down the affected area on a lacrosse ball, for example, and while you may not enjoy the process, the results will amaze you. If you are able to stay loose, while keeping the area strong, you can ward off problems before they exist. That, to me, is a far better option than trying to play catch up and scramble to fix what could have been easily prevented in the first place.
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Andy
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