Rotator Cuff Injuries
After my weight
training injury I
had a lot of time on my hands...
Besides eating Oreo cookies like they were going out of style, I decided to
do some research into rehabilitating my rotator cuff.
My physical therapist was the one most influential person in my decision to
later on create the Bully Xtreme home gym. Based on his hands on experiences he
revealed to me the horrors that some free weight injuries had caused.
In this article I will address some of the causes of shoulder injury a common
problem to athletes that participate in bodybuilding weightlifting and other
weight assisted sports.
Most people think that the shoulder is a ball and socket connection much like
the hip joint; nothing could be further from the truth. The shoulder is made up
of two main bones the humerus the large bone in the upper arm, and the scapula
the fan shaped bone of the upper back. The humerus is covered by cartilage which
in a cartilage covered semi cup called the glenoid. This and the top boney
extensions of the scapula make up a very fragile ball joint.
When its time to evaluate the shoulder muscles, most of the time we think of the
shoulder muscles we think of the deltoids, and the trapezius. However the
shoulder is made up of other lesser seen muscles whose development is essential
to health shoulder joints. These lesser muscles are the Supraspinatus,
Infraspinatus and the teres major, minor better know as the rotor cuff muscles.
Below is the action of these muscles, there purpose, origin and insertions:
Supraspinatus: This muscle has an origin at the top of the scapula and an
insertion at the top or superior facet of the humerus. This muscle initiates and
assists the deltoid in the abduction (rising) of the arm.
Infraspinatus: this fan shaped muscle has it origin at the middle of the scapula
it covers about 90 percent of the scapula and insert at Middle facet on greater
tuberosity of humerus (the larger tube shape connection of the upper arm at the
ball shaped top). The purpose of this muscle is to lateral lift the arm help to
hold the humeral head in the glenoid cavity of the scapula
Teres Major: this muscle has it origin at the lower inside of the scapula and
insertion is at the middle of the opposite side of the humerus, just below the
humeral head. The purpose of this muscle is to abduct and rotate the arm across
the body, as if your elbow was pointing down and just your forearm rotated
across your body.
Teres Minor: This tiny muscle has its origin at the lateral boarder of the
scapula just above the teres major, and its insertion at the Inferior facet on
greater tuberosity of humerus. This little muscle has to lateral rotate the arm,
and like the Infraspinatus help to hold the humeral head in the glenoid cavity
of the scapula.
Not only do the rotor cuff muscles stabilize the shoulder they also assist in
moving the arm especially during internal and external rotation. However the
ability of the rotor cuff muscle to stabilize depends on their strength in
relation to the larger deltoids and trapezius muscles.
The solution to shoulder pain is simple strengthen the rotor cuff muscles and
the shoulder pain goes away.
But where did the pain come from in
the beginning?
Easy, when the humeral head of the upper arm is stretched in such a way that it
separates form the glenoid cup, the rotor cuff muscles can no longer stabilize
the shoulder. This would happen when doing stretching (I prescribe to the theory
of never stretching the shoulder) or when an exercise that used the shoulder
muscles are pulled from what I call an unnatural position (as in behind the neck
pull downs).
There are only two other ways to working around this problem short of surgery,
one is to modify your workout so that you are less likely to injury the
shoulder; and two to do those exercises that can strengthen the stabilizer
muscle of the rotor cuff.
In my next article I will talk about using equipment other than weights along
with training methods that will yield as great if not greater results!
Return to Bully Xtreme from Rotator Cuff
|