Torrez Physical Therapy and Wellness

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Home Exercises for Front Shoulder Pain

🛑🛑Is shoulder impingement causing an infringement on your daily activities 🤔🤔


One thing I often see with people having  non traumatic shoulder pain is rotator cuff insufficiency in combination with mobility deficits.  Many people have tightness in their pecs and lats from working at a computer all day.  This forward rounded posture causes the front side muscles in our chest and neck to become shortened and tight while the back side muscles become lengthen and weak. Since this is multifactorial issue, there isn’t one exercise that will alleviate your pain and fix your issue. Here are a few exercises you can pair together as a  “joint” attack on your shoulder pain 👊

1️⃣Lat Stretch in kneeling

Sit your butt back onto your heels and reach as far forward as you can with one arm. Hold the stretch for 10 seconds and then rotate your hand so your palm is facing up. Lift your hand up off the ground without moving or lifting yourself to assist. Hold for 3-5 seconds. Repeat 10-15x on each side. 

2️⃣Anchored Pec Stretch 

Find a weight heavy enough that you can use it as an anchor without it moving. I like to place the weight up and out at about 120 degrees. Grab the weight-palm side up with your arm fully extended. Bend your knees and rotate them to the opposite side of the weight. Hold for 30-90s. 

3️⃣External Rotation Iso Holds with Lift

Place your elbows against your side and bend your elbows to 90 degrees. With a loop around your weird or a short band in your hands, external route with you palms up. Make sure to keep your elbows at your side to isolate your muscles. Hold this position for 10s. After the 10 seconds, raise your arms to 90-110 degrees while maintaining the external rotation. Hold for 5-10 seconds. Repeat 10-15x

4️⃣External Rotation (Slow count)

With a band anchored behind you, position your elbow to 90 degrees against your side. Slowly (3-5 seconds) externally rotate the shoulder. Once to your end range hold for 5-10 second. Pull the band back to neural at a normal speed. Repeat 15-20x. 

5️⃣Wall Slides into a “Y”

With a band around your wrists, place your forearms in front of you on a wall shoulder width apart. Make sure thumbs are up. Slide your hands up the wall making them wider as you go up creating a Y with your arms. Hold for 3 seconds. Slide back down to neural. Repeat 15-20x

6️⃣Front Raises with band 

With a band around your wrists and light dumbbells in your hands (thumbs up), raise your arms straight up while pushing into the resistance from the band on around wrist as you go ups. Lower your arms down. Repeat 15-20x