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A Successful Rotator Cuff Repair is Often Down to the Right Exercise
A rotator cuff tear is one of the most common shoulder problems. Almost 8 million Americans will go to their family doctor about shoulder pain this year and nearly sixty percent of them will have damaged the rotator cuff. Some will defnitely need corrective surgery but most of them will manage to repair their shoulder simply by doing specific rotator cuff exercises to strengthen this often neglected group of muscles.
So what do these muscles do and why are they so easily injured? Okay, let's just imagine your shoulder joint as a soccer ball resting on a plate. The shoulder is a shallow ball and socket joint in some ways it is similar to your hip. The main difference between the two joints is that in the shoulder the socket of the joint is very shallow, so the analogy of a ball on a plate is fairly accurate.
The shallow socket allows the joint to move freely but at a cost. It is relatively easy for the ball to slip off of the socket. So the rotator cuff muscles are designed to hold the ball of the upper arm in place as we move. Without them it would be incredibly easy to dislocate the shoulder. These are four small muscles that are all attached to the shoulder blade at one end and the head of the humerus at the other surrounding the shoulder in a cuff of muscle, hence the name . These muscles stabilise the shoulder, holding the arm in place and they only really get used to any extent when we lift our arms above shoulder height.
As we age the muscles start to get weaker through lack of use, but we tend to be unaware of this until we ask them to do something. Playing golf, throwing a ball with the kids, reaching up for something or lifting something above our heads, all of these movements put a sudden strain on our rotator cuff and can damage them.
Apart from day to day wear and tear we can also injure our rotator cuff with repetitive movements. Baseball pitchers will often damage the rotator cuff, if your work means constantly reaching up you can do the same, shelf stackers working above shoulder height are putting strain on these muscles every time they lift a can or bottle.
Because we don't consciously use our rotator cuff it is a difficult group of muscles to exercise, but because weakness in these muscles is a major cause of shoulder injury, exercising and strengthening them is often the route back to health and flexibility.
But first, you need to rest. Let the muscles repair by resting them. Doing any kind of shoulder exercises just after an injury is simply going to lead to a worse injury. You cannot work through a rotator cuff injury, you need to rest it and let it heal, doing passive non weight bearing exercises to keep the joint mobile for two or three weeks. Avoid any movement that causes pain. By all means take some anti-inflammatory drugs and pain killers but be careful of using your shoulder if you are masking the pain as you can do more harm than good.
Once the muscle has started to mend it is possible to start specific exercises aimed at developing and strengthening the rotator cuff. These will always be exercises with little or no weight or resistance. Try to avoid any pain during exercise as this suggests that you are damaging the muscle not strengthening it.
The majority of rotator cuff problems can be fixed with exercise alone but if you are in the small minority that need surgery you will still need to exercise these muscles after surgery as part of the treatment and to avoid future injuries.
Look after your shoulders, both of them, not just the one that has let you down.
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If you want to know what rotator cuff rehab helped me to fix my shoulder without surgery check out my story at
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