Rotator Cuff Exercise Saved Me From Corrective Shoulder Surgery. Do You Need To Be Doing Them Too?

Earlier this year I tore one of the four muscles in my rotator cuff. Rotator cuff tears come in a number of different shapes and sizes and can be triggered by a number of different events so I was relatively lucky in that my cuff injury was only a partial tear not, thankfully, a full thickness tear.

I had something badly and put far too much strain on my shoulder joint. I felt a shooting pain at the top of my shoulder and fortunately had the common sense to put it down. I rubbed my shoulder and carried on but this time I lifted it was much more carefully. My shoulder seemed okay, until the day after.

When I woke up my shoulder hurt. Trying to lift my arm straight up in front of me, reaching out for anything or even getting dressed all caused me pain. I couldn't even tuck in my shirt without feeling a sharp pain at the top of my shoulder. Over the next three or four days my shoulder gradually became stiff up and the same movements became more and more painful. Not only did it hurt in the day but I was struggling to sleep. If I lay on my bad shoulder I was kept awake by the pain. If I lay on my good shoulder, I had to balance my arm carefully along the length of my body to stop it dropping in front of or behind me as both those positions were painful Life was getting very difficult..

I resorted to sleeping on my back which did nothing for my marriage as I immediately started to snore like a trooper.

In the end, it turned out that I had torn my rotator cuff. I had managed to tear my Supraspinatus tendon which runs through a channel of bone just under my collarbone before attaching to the top of my arm. Because it was torn it became inflamed. Because it was inflamed it was getting snagged on the bone every time that I used that particular muscle resulting in the muscle gradually fraying. Surgery was recommended. The idea was to remove a small piece of bone to allow the damaged tendon extra room to move so that it could heal. Being in the UK the date was booked for three months away and I started a painful wait.

I started researching shoulder problems and their various therapies and discovered that most rotator cuff injuries are treated without surgery. Allow the muscle to heal with rest whilst treating the pain and inflammation with anti-inflammatory drugs and ice packs and then, once the pain has reduced start simple low weight rotator cuff exercise to build up and strengthen the rotator cuff muscles.

Most important of all, let the muscle rest. If I had carried on using my shoulder normally, I would have damaged teh muscle even more every time that I used it. If I had managed to ignore the pain or worked through it I could have ended up with a full rotator cuff tear. Now that would have needed surgery!

As it was by avoiding any movement that caused pain and by carefully treating the inflammation I gradually got to the position where I could do very basic easy exercises without any pain. As the exercises strengthened my muscles I regained the strength and movement in my shoulder and now ten weeks on I have full pain free movement again.

I'm lucky in that I have an office job. With a few simple changes to my desk layout I could avoid putting strain on the damaged muscle. If you have a more physical job you may have to think a bit more about how to avoid using the injured shoulder, but it is essential that you do so as continuing to use it will simply make it worse and all the therapy in the world wont help if you manage to tear it completely. Rotator cuff exercise features in most shoulder injury therapy courses simply because the strength of this group of muscles is fundamental to the wellbeing of your shoulders. Even if you have healthy shoulders it is worth spending a few minutes a day keeping these four muscles in good shape.