Painful shoulders can be cumbersome and debilitating if not treated effectively and efficiently. How do painful shoulders arise? The typical mechanisms of injury are either repetitive overuse or not used enough!
Pain is typically located in the deltoid area on the shoulder but can carry all the way down the arm to the hand. It is always important when dealing with shoulder pain to rule out the neck, as the cervical spine can refer pain to the shoulders. In some cases, it can be both the shoulder and neck as involvement of pain.
As Sports Physiotherapist Adam Meakins states, shoulders are either 1) Unstable and Painful (usually after a dislocation or subluxation), 2) Stiff and Painful (Frozen Shoulder), 3) Weak and Painful. Since the Rotator Cuff stabilizes a joint that has more movement in it than any other joint in the body, it must be robust and strong!
There does not have to be a certain moment when pain arises, certainly pain in shoulders can creep up over time.
The usual suspects: The Rotator Cuff Complex. The rotator cuff is a series of four muscles that are attached to the shoulder blade (or scapula). Supraspinatus is the most commonly irritated muscle; it abducts the arm to 20 degrees. Infraspinatus and Teres Minor both externally rotate the shoulder and Subscapularis internally rotates the shoulder. Rarely are individual muscles the cause of pain as the rotator cuff works as a complex to stabilize the shoulder.
Treating the shoulder does not have to be complicated! LOAD IT! There are various exercises that can be used to treat shoulder pain that does not need treatment through manual therapy. Long term results and robustness can only come from a specific home exercise program, that does not have to be burdensome. Shoulder pain does not have to be debilitating when you can treat it from the comfort of your home with simple exercises.
Please reach out to me for more details on how to tackle shoulder pain!
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