Rotator Cuff Physical Therapy Exercises Can Fix Your Torn Shoulder Quickest

After tearing my rotator cuff quite badly last year and ending up with an imipinged shoulder I have discovered that rotator cuff physical therapy exercises are the quickest way to get your shoulder back to its pre injury state. This is true whether you are aiming to speed up recovery time or recover from surgery.

Physical therapy will always form part of the recovery process for cuff injuries. It is usually tried before resorting to surgery as most problems will respond to shoulder specific exercises. The exceptions to this are a full thickness rotator cuff tear or a severe shoulder impingement both of which may require surgery followed by a period of rest before beginning physical therapy.

It is vital with any shoulder injury that you rest your shoulder properly for some time until any swelling and pain have subsided. Any pain that you feel with specific movements is usually a sign that you are doing more damage to the muscle or tendons. Resting your shoulder properly may well mean using a sling, avoiding driving and will almost certainly mean modifying your day to day activities to avoid any movements that cause you pain. Along with the rest, use non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to help to reduce the inflammation. Inflammation of the muscles and tendons is the main cause of pain in rotator cuff injuries and bringing down the inflammation is key to a speedy recovery.

Once the pain and inflammation are under control it is essential to begin shoulder specific exercies that are aimed at rehabilitating the rotator cuff and strengthening the shoulder. Physical therapy exercises will not  be the general weight bearing shoulder exercises that we use to build muscle as these tend to focus on the main muscles of the shoulder and avoid the rotator cuff.

Rotator cuff physical therapy will consist of exercises with little or no resistance or weight often relying on the natural resistance of the body to achieve results. Just lifting the weight of your arm is often enough resistance to achieve the desired effect at first, moving on to using small weights as the muscles gets better. All exercise routines should include a series of gentle stretches to avoid further injury to the damaged muscle, followed by stabilising and strengthening exercises. You will be surprised how quickly your shoulder can return to normal once you start developing the rotator cuff muscle.

In my case, I managed to fix a bad shoulder rotator cuff tear and shoulder impingement, which I was told would require surgery, in just eight weeks using rotator cuff physical therapy exercises.