Rotator Cuff Injury Exercises -Save Your Shoulders Before You Injure Them!

A rotator cuff injury is one of the most common shoulder injuries. Nearly eight million Americans are going to suffer from a shoulder injury this year alone and around Sixty percent of these will be rotator cuff injuries. So when is the best time to be starting rotator cuff injury exercises.

The obvious answer is when you have damaged this group of muscles but if a few more of us thought about this before we damaged them, there would be fewer people waiting at the doctor.

If you do sports that involve overhead movement you are likely to get an injury at some time. Javelin throwers, Baseball Players and tennis players are all at risk simply because this group of muscles is put under most strain when you use your arm above shoulder height. Add a sporting activity to that and you have a potential recipe for problems especially if you never exercise the rotator cuff.

Does a hobby or your work include working above shoulder height? Rotator cuff injury is a classic injury for plasters and painters and decorators.

Are you over forty? If so then you have just entered the at risk group. As we age these muscles weaken through lack of exercise and then suddenly we'll put a load on them by doing something daft. Through a ball with the grand kids, start playing sport again as we have a mid life crisis. The muscles just are not prepared for it and the sudden exercise often causes problems. Five minuets of feeling young again can leave you in agony for weeks.

If you fit any of the above groups then you are already at risk and need to start exercising your rotator cuff muscles on a daily basis. The great news is that it does not take long on a daily basis and you will hardly work up a sweat. These are fairly small muscles that you will exercise with eother no weight or very small weights. Most of rotator cuff exercises for both damaged and healthy muscles are Pilates based. Slow movement that is focused on control not intensity.

The biggest difference if you have already damaged your rotator cuff is that you need to let it heal before you start any kind of exercise. If you feel pain when you lift your arm, or reach our for something then you probably have a rotator cuff injury. If reaching behind you or lying down causes pain in yoru shoulder then it is probably too late to start preventative exercise and too soon to start therapeutic exercise.

Rotator cuff problems are painful when you move because the muscles are getting pinched when they are inflamed and any movement is simply causing more damage. You need to rest the injury, treat the inflammation and manage the pain before you start any sort of exercise.

The exercises to return your rotator cuff to full health are the same exercises that you would have done to prevent an injury so if you haven't yet injured your rotator cuff, there is no better time to start. After all, you have a one in three chance of a rotator cuff injury and just five or ten minutes a day is all it will take to prevent a shoulder problem starting.

If I could turn back the clock to pre-injury, I would be exercising these muscles on a daily basis.