Shoulder cuff.

[Mr Punch]

What's a shoulder cuff? What's a rotator cuff? What damages them? How do you know? How do you exercise to prevent it?

I'm familiar with handcuffs if that helps...!:D

[SevenStar]

The rotator cuff is made up of muscles and tendons that surround the upper arm bone - it holds the bone in the shoulder joint.

Trauma to the roattor cuff is a very common cause of shoulder pain. It can be injured due to repetitive stress (I know someone who meesed his up by doing several hundred hindu pushups every day) or by a single traumatic shock.

Dunno of any exercises to prevent it, but I do know a couple of exercises to help rehab it if it's torn.

[Ford Prefect]

Strenthening and increasing the flexability of your internal and external rotators will decrease your risk of injury, but overuse injuries will still occur. Are you a major league pitcher?

[Toby]

Hi Mat,

I was diagnosed a couple of weeks ago with osteolysis in my AC joint. The sports specialist told me that the first study into osteolysis took place about 20 years ago and 44 of the 45 patients in the study were weightlifters. Guess how I did mine ... Causes of osteolysis are "repetitive microtrauma" or single large incidents of trauma like 7* said. Common patients include weightlifters, judo practitioners (from breakfalls), bike riders (from crashing onto shoulders), full-contact sports like ice-hockey & footballers, squash players (from crashing into floors/walls).

Osteolysis causes decay of the bone :eek:. The doc showed me x-rays of people who'd lost over 1" of bone. My decay had just started, and the prescription was rest and no exercises lifting the upper arm above shoulder height. He also said punching wall-bags, which I did daily, was a no-no. I still do benches (although they're especially bad) and pull-ups, but I've significantly reduced my workout load. I'm just doing PTP now. NSAID's can also help, but I'm trying not to take too much medicine. Rest period should last 4-6 months. It's also a potentially recurring problem, so I've got to watch out for the rest of my life :(.

Symptoms of my osteolysis (which turn out to be textbook symptoms according to my google research) include a raised/inflamed area around the affected bone, mild pain or a dull ache in the general area but not enough to affect my weights or MA, "clicking" of the joint when heavily moving my shoulder.

My sifu told me to take calcium and fish oil tablets to help regenerate the bone. Apparently his sifu in China told him that calcium alone won't work, you need the fish oil to bind with the calcium to help it be absorbed.

Hope that helps.

[Mr Punch]

Originally posted by Ford Prefect
Strenthening and increasing the flexability of your internal and external rotators will decrease your risk of injury, but overuse injuries will still occur. This is kind of what I'm getting at: how do you exercise your shoulders to increase the flexibility of your internal and external rotators without risking overuse.

BTW, I haven't pitched major league for at least, hmmm 31 of my 31 years, but I do practise kendo for example, which has a lot of repetitive swinging movements (though kendo usually damages the elbows more), wing chun which has lots of grab and jerk lop saos, aikido which has lots of circular moves forcing the shoulder back on itself (sorry - gently persuading ;) )... and more! So I think it has some applicability.


He also said punching wall-bags, which I did daily, was a no-no.

I know someone who meesed his up by doing several hundred hindu pushups every dayOK, so we have a straight action, putting impact stress on the whole arm, and we have a circular motion putting progressive stress on the shoulder...

Anyone any other scare stories and evidence of specifically damaging exercises?

And what about standard push-ups?

[Toby]

One of the worst exercises for my osteolysis is apparently shoulder presses. I was doing behind-the-neck shoulder presses once a week with heavy weights. Also, incline benches aren't good. I also used to lie on my back on the floor and toss an 8kg medicine ball up in the air in sets of 100. That wasn't a good idea, either.

I've quit my previous weights routine and I'm now doing minimal sets of bench, squat, deadlift and pullups. I do heaps of standard pushups in my wing chun classes, in sets of 20. They're not advised either (like the benches and pullups). Since changing my workout after the diagnosis (2 weeks ago), my shoulder has stopped hurting. I'm seeing how it goes at the moment. I'll stop all exercises if it still doesn't get better, but I don't want to.

[PLCrane]

Here's a pretty good explanation with some pictures - http://www.jointhealing.com/pages/shoulder/rotatorcuff.html

You can do a google search for rotator cuff exercises and find a few descriptions with pictures. I prefer using rubber bands, because I have those, I don't have dumbells, and I can do them upright, rather than having to lie down to work against gravity. (see pictures to understand what I'm talking about).

Keep in mind that the rotators are small muscles, and their main job is to position the ball in the socket while the bigger muscles do the actual work, so don't do these exercises with heavy weights. And to prevent injury when you're doing your regular lifting routine, stop when the big muscles get tired, so you don't end up putting the load on the little muscles.

Younger people tend to get acute sprains from major traumas. As you age, the blood supply to the tendons and ligaments decreases, and you become more susceptible to injuries. Repeated injuries result in scar tissue and weakening of the tendons, and can eventually result in a tear.

Success of a surgical repair depends on the condition of the tndon - it's easier in younger people, and harder (or impossible) in older people with degerated tendons. So the best advice is not to injure it in the first place. Be careful.

[Mr Punch]

Cheers, good site. Makes me feel old just looking at it!

And cheers Toby.