Rotator Cuff Exercises

Here are 4 Exercises you can do right now to help alleviate your rotator cuff pain!

1) TUCK YOUR SHOULDER BLADES “DOWN AND BACK”

This will help build on number one. When you feel like you are hunching over at your desk try to sit up tall and feel like you are bringing your shoulder blades and tucking them into your back pocket.

Don't try to hike your shoulders up to your ears. If you stand in front of a mirror with your arms at your sides try to roll your shoulder back and hold that position. Make sure your shoulders aren't hiking up to your ears, they should actually move down or away from your ears when done correctly.

Think of this exercise as lotioning your shoulders or lubing them up. In the physio world we call this “setting your shoulder blades'' because you are setting them up for success! Once you do 10 - 15 of these all of a sudden the tension in your upper back and shoulder muscles should start to reduce and your shoulder feels more comfortable.

2) Sidelying External Rotation

Lie on your side, tuck a towel under your arm (the arm that is closest to the ceiling). Set your shoulder blade, grab a light weight like a water bottle, and rotate your arm towards the ceiling while keeping your elbow tight to the towel (imagine a door swinging open). Do this 3 x 10.

3) Prone Shoulder Retraction

Lie on your stomach on the edge of your bed, just enough so your arm (that is bugging you) is hanging off. Now try to set your shoulder blade with your arm hanging. This may feel difficult at first but will get easier as you go on.

4) Stretch Your Shoulder (median nerve floss) 

Believe it or not, shoulder tightness and pain can be caused by nerve tightness. Now your nerve is like a highway; it runs all the way from your spine, down your arm and ends in your fingertips. Now you can imagine all the tunnels it must have to run through and all the turns it has to make (bending your elbow and rotating your shoulder at the same time). Sometimes as the nerve has to navigate the rest of your body it will get caught up or stuck, just like a car accident in a tunnel. Everything will get clogged up and over time (if you don’t remove the accident) you will have a real problem. Here is a simple stretch you can do to release the nerve in your shoulder to help you move better. We call this NERVE FLOSSING because you are doing exactly that. Here are the pictures to help guide you. It's fairly simple.

Stand up or sit up tall, lift your shoulder out to your side aout parallel to the ground, turn your palm up the sky, now bring your ear to the shoulder that is relaxed and at the same time curl your wrist like you're flexing your forearm of the arm that's in the air. Hold that for a count of 2, then do the opposite, bring your other ear to your shoulder (that's in the air) and curl your wrist to the floor.

My last recommendation is obvious, see a physio! Most issues are very easy to resolve as long as you get it looked at. Even if it has gone on for months and even years. There is a lot that can be done to help you become pain free and return to your normal life, PAIN FREE!

To book your free discovery visit and to discover how we can help you FOR FREE, just click this link FREE DISCOVERY VISIT or call 6477990966.

DISCLAIMER

We make every effort to ensure that we accurately represent the injury advice and prognosis displayed throughout this report. However, examples of injuries and their prognosis are based on typical representations of those injuries that we commonly see in our physical therapy clinic. The information given is not intended as representations of every individual’s potential injury. As with any injury, each person’s symptoms can vary widely and each person’s recovery from injury can also vary depending upon background, genetics, previous medical history, application of exercises, posture, motivation to follow physical therapist's advice and various other physical factors. It is impossible to give a 100% complete accurate diagnosis and prognosis without a thorough physical examination and likewise the advice given for management of an injury cannot be deemed fully accurate in the absence of this examination from one of the physical therapists at PHYSIO FOR SURGERY. Significant injury risk is possible if you do not follow due diligence and seek suitable professional advice about your injury. No guarantees of specific

results are expressly made or implied in this report.