At-Home Exercises for Shoulder Pain: Seattle Chiropractor Report
Your shoulder is the most flexible joint in your body. Complete range of motion—your ability to move your shoulder in a wide variety of directions—often comes at the expense of joint stability, causing painful shoulder injuries.
First off, it is most important to see your Seattle Chiropractor to receive the correct diagnosis of your problem and Seattle Active Release Technique and Graston Technique. Proper treatment quickly can decrease the amount of time it takes to recover from an injury drastically. Plus, you will be taught home exercises that can help prevent the injury from occurring again in the future.
Common shoulder symptoms include:
- Pain on the top or front of the shoulder. Worsens when trying to do overhead activity.
- Weakness can be moderate to severe, worsening with overhead activities.
- Stiffness, which may cause loss of arm movement
- Popping, extremely painful.
- Unable to sleep on your shoulder? Is it painful to lay on your shoulder, or does pain wake you up at night?
If you experience the above symptoms, these home exercises may benefit you!
1: Lie on your stomach, close to the edge of a bed. Let your weak arm hang over the edge, relax shoulder, arm, hand, and shoulder blade. Slowly and gently swing your arm forward and back, without using neck muscles (might be easier for someone else to gently start swinging arm). As pain decreases, increase swing. They should begin at a 15 degree angle for about 15 seconds and progress to 30-45 degree for about 3-5 minutes as pain subsides with time. Do NOT increase angle if pain does not decrease.
2: Stand and hold onto sturdy chair with your good arm. Bend forward at the waist and bend knees to protect your back. Relax your weak arm, let it hang limp, and let your shoulder blade relax and drop. Keeping your shoulder relaxed, use your body motion to swing your arm in small circles. Repeat motion and change direction of circles. (Begin at 30 seconds and eventually progress to 3-5 minutes).
3: Lie on your side with a rolled-up towel under your armpit (good arm). Stretch your good arm above your head. Keep your weak arm at your side, elbow bent at a 90 degree angle and forearm resting on your chest, palm down. Use a small weight if your shoulder is strong enough, and raise until level with your shoulder. Repeat until arm is tired.
It is important to see your local Seattle Chiropractor without hesitation. It is natural to stop moving your shoulder because of pain, but this could lead to complete loss of range of motion. These exercises are simply a start to keep the muscles and joint in motion. See your Seattle Chiropractor for at-home exercises that fit your unique injury needs.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email Kevin Rindal, Seattle Chiropractor at DrRindal@InHealthSeattle.com.