Week 4

Subject:  Get to know your rotator cuff and its dos and don’ts.

The rotator cuff and the muscles that make it up are often the sources of shoulder impingement, tendonitis, and tears.
Four key muscles make up your rotator cuff. There is also a fifth muscle that helps the rotator cuff group.
The supraspinatus sits in a groove on the top of the shoulder blade and attaches to your humerus.
The infraspinatus is on the back bottom side of your shoulder blade and connects to your humerus.
The subscapularis sits on the front of your shoulder blade and attaches to your humerus.
Your teres minor attaches to the outer edge of your shoulder blade and connects to your humerus.
The 5th muscle that assists the rotator group is a portion of your biceps muscle.

While individually they create action on your shoulder, together they help stabilize or keep your humeral head or the top of your humerus bone centered in the socket.
When the humeral head or the top of the arm bone is no longer centered in the socket (generally moves forward in the joint), you may feel a pinching sensation when raising the arm overhead.
Wear and tear, shoulder impingement, rotator cuff tendinitis, tears, or bursitis start to occur when these muscles don’t work equally together.

How do you avoid this happening or stop it from getting worse?

Maintain or create more optimal alignment of your shoulder joint.

Generally, we release large muscles that are tight. Tight muscles of the shoulder can often be the lats or teres major. Following the release, use an activation exercise like an isometric of the shoulder joint’s deep muscles. The isometric helps center the bones in the joint by using the deep stabilizing muscles. Finally, follow that up using proper setup or cues that help maintain the appropriate alignment for each exercise or activity.

Avoid the cues and set up of pull the shoulders down and back for posture and exercise.  These recruit large muscles like that lats that can contribute to pulling the humerus out of alignment.

Have questions?  Reach out, to us at  info@sohmar.com or call 630-968-7827  I an assess and find the best program for you.

Sincerely.

Michael McAleese LMT, IMS

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