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.

Click here to learn how to recover from shoulder pain.

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

To understand about bursitis, it helps to know a little bit about shoulder anatomy. The rotator cuff is a set of four muscles that help to strengthen and stabilize the shoulder during movement. These muscles work together to support the shoulder, keeping your shoulder in its socket, and also work to counterbalance the other heavy lifter shoulder muscles.

In between the shoulder muscles and between the tendons and the bones are several spongy fluid filled sacks called bursae. Each bursa acts as a kind of cushion or padding, helping the muscles glide over each other and prevents the muscles from rubbing directly against bone.

Sometimes, due to trauma, repetitive motion, squeezing, and other forces, these bursae can become irritated and inflamed. When irritated, a bursa will swell with excess fluid, leading to a lot of swelling and pain. When this happens, it is called bursitis.

An “itus” is any inflammation of the muscles, tendons, or bursa. In this case, Bursitis is when a bursa becomes inflamed.

Click here for more information on bursitis and other rotator cuff injuries.

So how do you treat bursitis pain?

The first step is to treat the pain and swelling. Rest the affected and apply ice or a cold compress. This will help numb the pain and reduce swelling. You can also take pain relief/anti-inflammatory medication such as ibuprofen.

The second step is to follow a targeted program of physical therapy that stretches and exercises the rotator cuff area. This will begin a gradual healing process that will also help you reduce the pain and regain flexibility in the affected area.

If you follow a targeted program of exercise, bursitis pain and discomfort can be eliminated and you get back to normal life.

Shoulder Exercise | Bursitis Pain Relief courtesy of: http://www.shoulderpainfreedom.com

I find heat to be very effective before bed. I will use a warm compress or a hot bath to sooth and relief my aching shoulder muscles. This helps them to relax. It also makes them more flexible.

It hurts when I lie directly on my affected shoulder. So I generally try to fall asleep on my back first. But I also like to toss and turn and sleep on my side, so this is difficult.

Click here for a step-by-step guide to treating shoulder pain.

I found that I can arrange extra pillows in lots of different ways to help support my body. Sometimes I stuff them under my affected shoulder. This helps to cushion my injury and to better distribute my body weight.

Sometimes I’ll make a trough or valley between the pillows. I can lean back against them slightly and they will take some of the weight off my shoulder.

Pillows also give my arm somewhere to go. Even if I sleep on my good side, I find that my arm puts a lot of torque on my shoulder. I find that if I can rest my arm on a pillow in front of me, I don’t put as much strain on my rotator cuff injury.

For more information on treating sleep shoulder pain, recovering from shoulder pain, and strengthening your rotator cuff muscles, please see our recommended rotator cuff therapy guide.

Click here for a step-by-step guide to treating shoulder pain.

Shoulder Night Pain courtesy of: http://www.shoulderpainfreedom.com