The rotator cuff is a group of four muscles that stabilize and strengthen your shoulder.  Basically, these muscles help keep your shoulder in its socket as your lift, swing, throw, and reach with your arm.  They play crucial roles in most of our daily movements.  Unfortunately these muscles are very prone to injury.

If any of your rotator cuff muscles become weakened or damaged, you will know it.  You’ll experience both sharp and dull aching pain.  You shoulder may become stiff and you’ll lose a lot of flexibility and range of motion.

Rotator cuff injuries are common in sports like baseball, football, swimming, weight lifting, climbing, and kayaking and it is easy to see why.  Any activity that involves repetitive overhead circular movements, throwing motions, or swinging can put a lot of stress and strain on your shoulder muscles.

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You also don’t have to be an athlete to suffer from shoulder rotator cuff pain.  Rotator cuff injuries become increasingly common as we get older. Particularly after the age of 40 and definitely after age 60, it is important to actively stretch and exercise the rotator cuff muscles.

The key to recovering from shoulder rotator cuff pain and preventing shoulder injuries in the first place is to make sure you are stretching and exercising these muscles.  Particularly for injuries, it is not enough to do one or two exercises that you found on youtube.  You really need a targeted regimen of stretches and exercises that will rebuild strength and flexibility in all of your shoulder and rotator cuff muscles.  If you do the wrong exercise, or do the correct exercise improperly, you risk further damaging your shoulder.

The best strategy is to follow a step-by-step rotator cuff recovery program.  There are several good ones available and all were written by physical therapists who have used these same methods to help thousands of their own clients.  For more information, please visit our rotator cuff therapy guides page.

Click here for a detailed plan for shoulder rotator cuff pain relief.

Shoulder Rotator Cuff Pain courtesy of: http://www.shoulderpainfreedom.com

The rotator cuff is a set of four muscles and their tendons that surround your shoulder. You may have heard their scientific names before. Supraspinitus, subscapularis, infraspinitus, and teres minor. Together, these muscles work like a well oiled team, helping us do all the countless different shoulder and arm movements that we need to do throughout the day.

Think of a tall radio antenna tower or tent pole. You want the tower to stand straight up and not blow over in the wind. So usually these towers are tied down by several guy wires that pull on it in all directions.

Your rotator cuff muscles function in exactly the same way. They keep the ball of your shoulder join in its socket. While you are lifting something heavy, your rotator cuff muscles have to pull down on your shoulder at the same time as your deltoid is pulling up. Otherwise your shoulder would pop out of its socket.

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If you throw a baseball really hard, your rotator cuff muscles have to pull back at the same time to decelerate your arm and keep it from flying off your body.

So your rotator cuff muscles really do play a crucial role in most of your shoulder movements. Surprisingly, most people ignore these muscles and never get around to stretching or strengthening them. Without exercise, these muscles gradually weaken and become more and more prone to injury.

To keep your rotator cuff muscles strong and healthy, or to recover from an rotator cuff injury, its essential that you stretch and exercise these muscles.

A targeted program of rotator cuff exercise therapy can make the difference between a short recovery and long painful chronic condition.

Click here to learn how you can recover from your shoulder pain.

What Is The Rotator Cuff? Why Is Exercise Important? courtesy of: http://www.shoulderpainfreedom.com