Shoulder Injury Prevention

Today we see more and more athletes with shoulder injuries. 1“Shoulder injuries are frequently caused by athletic activities that involve excessive, repetitive, overhead motion, such as swimming, tennis, pitching, and weightlifting.” The majority of people learn the hard way about the importance of taking care of your shoulders. Unfortunately, most athletes are not educated in preventing shoulder injuries. This lack of education is a big factor in the number of shoulder injuries. The key to preventing these injuries is proper conditioning, including flexibility, core stability, balanced muscle strength, and sport-specific exercises.

Some things that you can do as an athlete is to educate yourself about the ways to prevent shoulder injuries such as, sports-specific exercises. You don't want to be doing exercises that will hurt you instead of help you. For example, it would be better for  a pitcher to do a dumbbell chest press on a body ball, as opposed to a bench press, so that their shoulder movement is less restricted.

Core stability is the most important factor. 2“It provides the kinetic chain for overhead activities, allowing the trunk muscles to transfer energy and momentum to the shoulder for overhead sports.” The core is the foundation and provides a strong support for the shoulder This is why you need a tight, strong core.

Flexibility is a fundamental component of physical fitness. It is important to stretch both before and after you workout or play your sport. Keeping your shoulder stretched will help keep you flexible and keep you from getting tight. There are some exercise bands that you can use to help stretch, such as band shoulder press, internal and external band rotation, lateral and rear deltoid raises. You also want to ice after every time, so that you keep your shoulder from getting inflamed.

Shoulder muscle strength is probably the biggest reason for shoulder injuries. 2“Most athletes workout the front muscles of their shoulders like the pectoralis major, front deltoids, trapezius and rectus abdominis.”  This leaves the back muscles like the back deltoid, teres minor and major, infraspinatus, supraspinatus weak and the shoulder imbalanced and overworked. So you need to make sure you are working out both the front and back muscles for a balanced shoulder.  

References:

1 Common Shoulder Injuries-OrthoInfo - AAOS. (2009, July 1). Retrieved September 7, 2014, from http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00327

 

2 Shoulder Injury Prevention. (n.d.). Retrieved September 7, 2014, from http://www.shoulderdoc.co.uk/article.asp?article=1370