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Everyone has an opinion on the management of shoulder pain. Whether it is a family member, co-worker, or neighbor, you are bound to find someone that tried to rid of their shoulder pain conservatively or surgically. You will hear both sides of people’s experiences when it comes to having shoulder surgery. Some will say that it helped and they would recommend it. Others will say that it was a horrible and painful experience. This article will focus on providing you some basic shoulder exercises that will support a rotator cuff tendinitis or torn tendon diagnosis, and possibly avoid rotator cuff surgery.
Since we specialize in athletes’ shoulders, we will provide our spin for the more complex rotational athlete’s shoulder. This article is still very useful for the everyday shoulder. The difference between the athletes’ shoulders, such as baseball pitcher, swimmer, volleyball or tennis overhand serve, and an everyday person’s shoulder is that the athletes’ shoulder needs a continual obsession about maintaining the foundational basics that this article talks about. This is an article of the basics of rotator cuff function and performance, so you can resolve your tendinitis or torn rotator cuff myotendinous unit.
A muscle and tendon work together, so we are going to establish that they will be both called a contractile unit. All muscle and tendon, both help you to contract a muscle and move your arm. Your Sports Medicine Physical Therapist or Orthopedist Surgeon will decide that you have rotator tendinitis if you have “sharp” pin-point pain to the tip of your shoulder or “dull and achy” broad pain to the general region of your shoulder. It will hurt to raise your arm overhead. You may or may not have a limited range of motion. If you have fallen on your shoulder or had suffered a direct blow to your shoulder, they might suspect a tear over tendinitis. There is research that shows age is a contributing factor of one having a rotator cuff tendinitis or tear.
If you are wondering how your Orthopedist or doctor concluded your rotator cuff tendinitis after looking at your shoulder for 5 minutes, only to tell you to take painkillers, apply ice, and seek a Physical Therapist, it is because of the general guidelines listed above. It does not take long to tell your age. He hears your story for 1-3 minutes. Trauma? Occupation? He or she can see there is shoulder pain when you raise your arm. Touching your arm does not tell much more, so if the doctor is in a rush, he may or may not touch your arm. This might disgust and frustrate you even more.
With rest, the help of a skilled physical therapist, and the right exercises, rotator cuff tendinitis most often can be treated without further intervention.
Swimmer’s shoulder, bursitis, or impingement are just a few of the names sharing the same meaning: rotator cuff tendinitis.
This inflammation of your shoulder joint tendons doesn’t discriminate against age or occupation. If you are repeatedly lifting your shoulder in sports or sleeping on your shoulder too often, rotator cuff tendinitis can affect you.
Is your shoulder stiff and causing you daily struggles in managing your pain? Do you feel a stubborn kink every way you turn? It’s not good to let these things sit stiff. You need a plan to get back into shape and physical therapy will help you get there safely.
There are a number of ways you could have developed rotator tendinitis. Maybe you were involved in an unfortunate accident, maybe the condition was a result of a sports injury. Whatever the cause, you’re now ready to take matters into your own hands. With the help of rotator cuff specific physical therapy for tendonitis, you’ll get the good-as-new relief you’ve been waiting for.
What Is Rotator Cuff Tendinitis?
The rotator cuff is made up of tendons and muscles surrounding the joints of your shoulder bones. The tendons are specifically located in the socket of your shoulder where the ball of the joint and the cap meet. When the tendons are damaged, either by an injury or daily overwork, they become inflamed and cause you to lose out on your regular performance activities.
Luckily rotator cuff tendinitis does not require surgery. It can be treated with simple physical therapy stretches, rest, and medications to manage the inflammation. If left untreated, this condition will lead to the tendon becoming more damaged and it may start to tear.
A first step to treating rotator cuff tendinitis is to ice the injury for about twenty to thirty minutes in 4-6 hour intervals. You will also want to avoid any further activity where you have to move your shoulder. The next step would be to take anti-inflammatory medication, such as ibuprofen, to reduce swelling and manage pain.
In most cases, you can expect to be dealing with this condition for around 2-4 weeks, but in extreme cases, it may last for months to come. Starting out with these simple steps is necessary before you venture into exercises of physical therapy.
Benefits of Physical Therapy
The range of motion of your shoulder is essential to everyday life activities. Anything from getting dressed to lifting your arms can become a troublesome issue when stretching your shoulder. These little movements are taken for granted once the effects of rotator cuff tendonitis disable you from simple tasks.
Anti-inflammatory and pain medications can help in the meantime while you find the best physical therapist to work with you. However, using medication alone will only temporarily take the pain away. Without proper therapy, you could be dealing with unwanted pain on a consistent basis. You will want to use your medication while doing daily physical therapy. These two practices are used together for the best results.
Seeking help from a professional physical therapist is your best bet! Your therapist will work with you to test your strength and instruct you in recommended stretches that will in time relieve the aching pulls of your inflamed tendons. Depending on your movement abilities you will find that stretching with your specific exercises will hurt before you find relief, but constantly keeping to therapy routine will have you glad you made the decision to get treatment.
What Types of Exercises Can You Expect?
Your physical therapist will go over a number of different exercises and stretches for you to perform in the office and at home. These may seem way too easy to be effective, but the results will have you feeling back to normal sooner rather than later.
A single 5 or 10-pound weight is used for one of the recommended exercises. In this practice, you will use the weight on the side of your affected shoulder. You will need to forward approximately at a 20-25 degree angle while rotating the weight in a small circle. Try to keep pain at a minimum by not pressuring yourself to move too quickly or at a range of motion that makes it physically unbearable. Perform this routine 1-2 times per day, circling your arm 10 times clockwise and counter-clockwise for each session.
Before performing the explained exercise, you will need to do some stretches as a precautionary warm up. Holding the elbow of the affected arm, stretch your limb across your body and hold it steady for a 10-second count. You can repeat this process at different angles, such a holding your arm level with your chin, torso, and belly.
These are just two simple examples of what will be participating in with physical therapy for your rotator cuff tendinitis. Your physical therapist may alter or advance exercises depending on your own capabilities, strength, and pain threshold.
Finding Relief is the Most Important Result
As physically draining as physical therapy sessions can be at first, sticking to your workouts will make the process easier. You don’t want to wait too long to start therapy, because a torn tendon will be much more excruciating. The hassle of having surgery is simple to avoid so long as you take the steps to heal rotator cuff tendinitis before it gets to that extreme.
Don’t sit on the fence about joining a physical therapist to improve your quality of life. There are plenty of techniques to help you. If you want to regain your strength and go on with your normal daily tasks without disabling pain, talk to your doctor. They should be able to recommend physical therapists in your area.
If you’re still looking for the perfect treatment to suit your needs, call us today to learn more about our services and how we can help.
One LOVE,
Danh Ngo PT, DPT, OCS, SCS
Doctor of Physical Therapy
Board Certified Specialist in Orthopedic and Sports Medicine
Finding the right balance in life is crucial for happiness in life. The definition of happiness is different for everyone. This cannot be any more true for the care of neck and head pain. In “Our Mighty Duck…Quack! Quack! Quack! (How to Manage Neck Pain)” I explained how this balance is important in the role of the neck, metaphorically and literally. Our ability to stay upright is important to not add any more stress to our neck’s role in connecting our senses to our environment. If you are interested in direct self-treatment strategies to your neck, read “Hidden Reasons for Nagging Neck Pain Part 1 and Part 2“.
It is common to have tension in our neck extensors like the trapezius (upper) fibers and levator scapulae muscles. I linked the trigger point chart to these muscles, showing where the “knots” can be and the referral pain pattern. These are the same movement pattern as our glutes. If one has a weak buttock (gluteus maximus and medius muscle) propulsion or power capability, the neck (extensors) muscles can be overworked. Our big toe flexibility plays a huge role allowing and communicating our glutes to fire properly, thus the big toe is important in neck care.
Many studies have shown direct relief of pain and pressure when our middle back has good range of motion. The good news is that our mid back is an easy region to provide self-care too. Our middle back is where our diaphragm is located. The diaphragm and utilizing breathing strategies to become a diaphragmatic breather is important in relieving pain and tension up and down your spine. Our diaphragm is part of our “core” and practicing efficient breathing can have a profound effect in displaying raw power and athletic movement. (more…)
