Shoulder Exercises - The Way to a Pain Free Shoulder

Having injured my rotator cuff a few months ago I have spent a great deal of my time researching shoulder problems and shoulder therapy on the internet and have discovered that exercise alone can fix the vast majority of shoulder problems.

At the end of last year I tore my left rotator cuff. It was a nasty tear and I ended up with an impinged tendon. Basically one of the tendons got inflamed after I lifted something that was too heavy and tore one of the muscles in my rotator cuff. Because it was inflamed it was getting pinched or impinged by my clavicle or collar bone. The pain was excruciating. Every time that I my shoulder in a particular direction my tendon was getting worn against the bone.

I tried lots of things including a three month course of Ibuprofen, a steroid injection right into the muscle and cold compresses to reduce the swelling. All of them gave some relief and reduced the symptoms but nothing sorted it out for me. In the end I was offered surgery to shave away a small piece of bone to free up the tendon so that it could heal. As I am based in England, with the NHS waiting lists, the surgery was scheduled for three months away and as I had already suffered three months of discomfort and pain I was reluctant to wait that long.

So I started finding out about shoulder injuries and shoulder exercise and discovered that physical therapy can do a lot for rotator cuff problems.

The secret is to rest the arm to start off with and work on the inflammation. My mistake had been to carry on using the arm as normal which could have injured my arm even further. Once I rested it properly for a couple of weeks I was able to start basic exercises designed to strengthen my rotator cuff. It was bizarre because only two weeks before the thought of doing shoulder exercises seemed absurd but it worked. It is vital not to experience pain when exercising as pain indicates that you are further damaging the muscles so I started slowly and built up over about six weeks until I found myself with a healthy, pain free shoulder that had its full range of movement restored.

Another four weeks on and I have just played my first round of golf this year. The shoulder therapy has not only sorted out my rotator cuff but they also seem to have improved my swing, or is that just hopeful thinking?

Why did it work? I think that as we age our stance changes, we don't stand as straight as we used to, we move differently to when we were younger. What I think is that the shoulder exercises have woken up some lazy muscles and changed my posture, only slightly, but enough to free up the problem tendons. Would I recommend exercise as a therapy for a damaged shoulder?

100% Yes! Not every shoulder injury will respond to just exercise. Common sense would say that it must depend on what you have managed to do to yourself but ten weeks after I was told that surgery was the only option I am pain free and feel great. The surgery is postponed indefinitely for the moment.