It might surprise you to learn that the majority of shoulder injuries can be mended with just exercise and rotator cuff problems are no exception. But, before you rush out and start pushing weights read the rest of this because the wrong exercises can seriously damage a torn rotator cuff. How you treat it depends on how bad the injury is and how you did it in the first place. Now don't be offended at this but just for a moment lets think of your shoulder tendons as bits of old car tow rope. Imagine that this rope has simply become worn through overuse. It may be getting a bit frayed in the middle. Another tow rope may have been used to pull something that was too heavy and may have been stretched or even snapped.

Get the picture? Depending on what you did to damage the tendons in the first place the injury could be different and may require a different kind of treatments. If you have managed to Tear a tendon right through|snap a tendon} you are almost certainly looking at surgery before you can recover. However, If it has simply become frayed you might well get away without surgery. The majority of rotator cuff injuries can be solved with exercise but before you start any programme you need to let the muscles mend properly which means resting and treating the swelling. This could involve ice and compression treatment, Ibuprofen or Steroid injections to reduce inflammation. Once the tendons have healed you can then start on rotator cuff strengthening exercises to build up the strength and movement in your shoulder.

Your rotator cuff muscles are very small but also very necessary muscles. Because they are small the exercises to strengthen them will be using either no weights or very small ones and even as the muscles get stronger you won't be using any great reistance with these muscles. They are designed to hold the top of the humerus (arm bone) into the socket of your shoulder. Because the shoulder joint is a very shallow ball and socket joint it would be very easy to pull it out of joint so these muscles help to pull the shoulder together and form a cuff around the shoulder to stabilize and protect it. They are put under pressure when you reach behind you or start working above shoulder height, reaching up, lifting something, throwing something and so it is when you do these same movements that you feel pain if you have damaged them. If you've torn your rotator cuff I bet you find it hard to tuck your pants in or scratch the top of your head.

Rotator cuff strengthening exercises will avoid these movements and concentrate on easy movements that gently build up the muscles again. These are some of the least looked after|most neglected} muscles on the body. We take them for granted all the time until we injure them. The good thing is that with the right physicall therapy you can recover from a shoulder injury in around six weeks and be completely pain free. The wrong exercises and you can damage them more and be looking at expensive surgery and a long recovery time.