Frozen Shoulder – Why You Have It and How to Fix It
We need to have a little talk about frozen shoulder. That’s when you have pain in your shoulders when you move your arms overhead or behind your back.
What you DON’T want to do if you’re in pain is stop moving altogether. MOVE IT OR LOSE IT. What we want to do is move SLOWLY and CONSCIENTIOUSLY.
***However, if you suspect a tear or if you’re just come out of shoulder surgery, wait to do rehab movements until it’s cleared by your doctor.
Moving too fast through exercise can cause many injuries. Trying to whip out as many chin- ups or push-ups as possible, straining your body, and not paying attention to form can hurt. Doing a slow and conscientious chin-up or push-up can help you strengthen and heal. But you don’t have to do chin-ups or push-ups if you don’t want to!
First, let’s focus on scapular engagement. Lack of scapular engagement is the third reason why people end up with shoulder pain. (The first reason being not moving it at all and the second is moving too roughly.)
To engage your scapulae, try this: stand up, bring your hands by your side, palms facing forward. Now picture that you’re pinching your shoulder blades together behind your back. As if you’re squeezing juice out of an orange between your shoulder blades. Keeping this sensation, slowly bring your arms up with your breath staying nice and slow. Try to breathe easy.
When you start to feel a little stiffness through your arms or shoulders, pause the movement for a second, keep breathing, readjust your shoulder blades, and continue.
About halfway up, you’ll notice that you’ll be unable to continue pinching your shoulder blades together. Now, what we do is focus on is keeping your shoulders away from your ears.
Come back down the same way you went up. Do this 8 times per day.
Modifications: if you can’t move your arms up without pain, stop where you feel the pain start and breathe there. Then come back down and repeat.
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