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Shoulder Exercises Improved My Life In Just A Couple of Months

By: Nick Bryant

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It seems unlikely but shoulder exercises were what helped me to lose weight and get fit or should I say helped me get back in shape.

About a year ago I tore my rotator cuff. Until then I had been a reasonably fit person, I ran three times a week, I had occasionally went to the gym, swam regularly, played golf, played squash and looked after myself pretty well. I was in my early fifties, looking good and proud of it.

And then I hurt my shoulder. I woke up one morning with a painful shoulder. I knew I had hurt it the day before lifting something awkwardly but had thought little more of it. Over the following few days my shoulder got worse. What started out as a sore shoulder became an arm that ached constantly; raising my arm to the front or side caused pain. Getting showered, getting dressed all became difficult. The more I used it the worse it got.

I had to stop going to the gym, I couldn't swim, golf and squash both had to go and finally the running became too painful. Every step caused shooting pains through my shoulder.

I took myself off to the doctor, who diagnosed a rotator cuff problem and referred me to a specialist. The specialist confirmed a torn rotator cuff and gave me a steroid injection to ease the inflammation and pain. It helped for a while but the pain returned. Another steroid injection worked no better so in the end I was booked for surgery to free up what was now a shoulder impingement.

All this took time, time in which I was unable to exercise because of the pain. Gentle walking was about all I could manage. I put on weight, my general fitness levels went down and all because of a simple shoulder injury.

I was booked for surgery but it was three months away so in desperation I started looking into shoulder injuries and their treatment. I found out that shoulder exercises feature strongly in most shoulder therapy programmes especially rotator cuff problems.

Your rotator cuff helps to stabilise the shoulder joint especially when you rotate your arms or raise them above shoulder height. If you damage your rotator cuff it beocmes inflamed and in some cases the tendons can become trapped against the shoulder blade. This is what happened in my case.

What shoulder exercises do in rotator cuff injuries is strengthen the shoulder muscles to help support the rotator cuff and allow it to heal. The important thing is to treat the inflammation, resting the shoulder completely to let it start to heal before you try any exercise. I gave it a go.

By now my shoulders were quite weak through lack of exercise so I started with some simple stretching exercises to improve mobility, following up with low resistance, low weight exercises to start to strengthen the muscles. Gradually over the next few weeks I upped the intensity of the exercises. My shoulder started to get better. I could feel it getting stronger and improving as each week went by. The exercises focused on flexibility and control not just strength.

I am now back running, have had my first swim and even played a round of golf. The surgery has been postponed, the weight is starting to go and I feel a lot fitter. So don't underestimate the power of simple shoulder exercises. They definitely changed my life for the better.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

If you found this article useful or just plain interesting and would like to know more about shoulder exercises then check out my site at myrotatorcuffcure.blogspot.com

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