The Secret to Happy Shoulders

This week we wanted to write a piece on subject for that lot of you can probably relate - shoulder injuries and shoulder health!

Shoulders are one of the most vulnerable joints in the body and if you are taking part in any form of physical training or sport where you are pushing your body, chances are you've felt or experienced some degree of pain or injury at some point in time. Most injuries occur due to a lack of balance at a joint. The most common injuries at the shoulder joint usually involve the famous rotator cuff, which is made up of 4 muscles (the supraspinatus, the infraspinatus, teres minor and subscapularis). What a lot of people don't know is that the shoulder girdle is that there are no bony attatchments that connect in order to keep the joint stabilised - this means that your shoulder is held together entirely by soft structures - muscles, ligaments and tendons. The implication of this is that without proper care, the shoulder girdle is more likely to get injured than other joints, due to it's inherent instability.

Three Tips for Balanced Shoulders

1. Move your shoulder joint through a full range of motion - think of the old adage "use it or lose it"! With any joint, it is necessary to move through it's full range of motion on a regular basis to maintain mobility and pain-free movement. 

2. Stretch the front of your chest and shoulders - for many adults, simple overhead movement is near impossible and is extremely painful due to an inability of the weak muscles of the rotator cuff not being able to overcome tightness from the muscles at the front. Unfortunately, a lot of us spend a lot of time hunched over a desk on the computer or in poor posture driving, sitting and going about everyday tasks. This poor posture, combined with improper training, leads to super tight muscles like the pecs, lats and biceps. Opening up and stretching the front of our bodies can help to correct this imbalance. 

3. Strengthen the back of the shoulders and the upper back - lastly to bulletproof your shoulder girdle it's vital that you strengthen the muscles of the upper back and rotator cuff through exercises such as seated rows, face pulls, external rotations, TRX pull ups, chin ups and single arm bench rows.

Yours in Health & Fitness

T&M