Training Tuesday: Tips for Shoulder Health

Shoulder injuries are common in the gym and the world of athletics. Injuring any of the rotator cuff muscles can bench you (pun intended!) for quite some time, especially if it results in surgery. Follow these tips to keep your shoulder in the best condition possible and prevent injury before it happens.

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Tips to Consider: 

• When in doubt with the shoulder, do NOT push it. It's so easy to over-stress this joint, particularly for people who do a lot of overhead lifting and those who played a throwing sport for years. If you have pain during a certain movement, avoid that movement until your pain goes away. As always, if your pain persists, see a doctor.
• When lifting over head, such as a shoulder press, clean and press, arnold press, etc, keep your arms in your peripheral vision. Getting behind the ear puts the muscles of the rotator cuff in a vulnerable position for injury, especially as the load increases. 
• When performing front, lateral or scaption raises with heavy weight (specfically for strength training purposes), lift only to shoulder height. In the prehab exercises you see below, we will lift above, but these are done with little to no weight.
• In just about 100% of cases, only one shoulder is injured, or in the case of throwing sports, one arm needs prehab more than the other due to use. Despite this, we want to always train both sides equally. Whatever we do on the dominant hand, we need to do on the opposite hand to keep everything in balance. 
• Don't try to overdo the weight. This is probably one of the number one moves I see done wrong in the gym because people try to lift too much weight. Your shoulder muscle isn't that big, it's simply not going to be able to push a ton of weight as compared to some of the other muscles of the arm like the biceps or triceps. 
• Make sure to strength train all the areas surrounding the shoulder just as much. Everything attaches somewhere, and a lot of times the attachment of one muscle is the starting point of another. If one is tight, often it affects the other. Make sure to train the upper and lower arms, as well as the back regularly, just like your shoulders. 
• Try not to sleep for an entire night on one side, for obvious reasons. The load of your body on your shoulder is a lot of stress after a few hours. More importantly, try not to fall asleep with your arm raised over your head whether you are on your side, back or stomach. 

Warm Up with Dynamic Exercises

• Dynamic exercises should be done for the shoulder before a workout.

Arm Circles

Perform about 20 small circles forward, followed by 20 small circles backward. Repeat with medium girth circles and then large circles in each direction. 

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Inch Worm

Begin in standing position. Bring palms to the floor just in front of your feet. Walk hands out away from the body one at a time until you are in a plank position. Walk hands back to return to starting position. 

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Cool Down with Static Stretching

• Static stretching should be done following exercise. Hold for 30 seconds each. 

Posterior Shoulder Stretch

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Overhead Shoulder Stretch

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Anterior Shoulder Stretch

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Towel Assisted Stretch

If you can clasp your hands together, no towel necessary! Make sure to switch which hand is on top. 

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Prehab Exercises: 
There are many shoulder exercises that can be done to prevent injury. I'm going to share with you guys just a few exercises that can be performed as much as every other day for those who are attempting to prevent injury and have no shoulder issues. Post injury, treatment and physical therapy programs, these exercises may be done as much as every day, but not all on the same day if in addition to your normal exercise program.

YTWL's
Performed with very light weight, either from a standing position in which you will lean forward to work against gravity, or leaning forward on a large physioball, bosu ball or bench. In the case of injury prevention, you're looking for about 20 reps of each, full range of motion.

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Y: Start with arms straight down thumbs up toward ceiling. Keep arms straight and raise to a Y position, allowing arms to go overhead. Return to starting position, slow and controlled.
T: Start with arms straight down, thumbs up toward ceiling. Keep arms straight and raise to T position, right at shoulder level. Return to starting position, slow and controlled.
W: Create a W with your hands up by your shoulders by bending the elbows at your side. Draw the shoulder blades down the back to squeeze the arms toward the back together to lift. This motion will only be about 6-12 inches of movement.

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L: Create the L shape shown in the figure with a 90 degree bend in each elbow. Keeping this angle at the elbows, rotate forward at the shoulder joint about 90-180 degrees. Lift back to L position.

Band Exercises
With light resistance, attach band at elbow height to a sturdy surface. Perform 15-20 of each exercise, 2-3 times through.

External Rotation

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Internal Rotation

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Those are just a few exercises to do to help prevent injury before it happens. These can also be used POST physical therapy to prevent reoccurring injuries, as your physical therapist permits. There are many different exercises, but prehab should always be done with light weight/high repetitions.

Have a great Tuesday!