Shoulder Exercises Fixed My Shoulder and Improved My Golf Game

Just a few months ago I thought that I would never play golf again.I was facing surgery and a long recovery period but shoulder exercises have not only helped but have also improved my game

Just a few months ago I thought that I would never play golf again. What started out as a sore shoulder had deteriorated until I was in constant pain, I lost the strength in my shoulder and couldn't lift my arm up to shoulder height never mind swing a golf club. To add insult to injury it was stopping me getting any sleep at night so that I was becoming more irritable with each day.

It all started when I was helping a friend to put up a timber garage. We had three sides up and were just putting in the fourth when a gust of wind caught it. I grabbed the panel to try to stop falling and felt a popping sensation in my shoulder.

The next day my shoulder was painful so I took some pain killers and carried on. What I was unaware of at the time was that I had managed to tear my rotator cuff. It was only a partial tear but the problem was that where the muscle had become damaged and inflamed it was now catching on part of my shoulder blade and getting damaged more each time that I tried lifting my arm up to the side or front.

After two weeks of ever increasing pain I visited my doctor who diagnosed a rotator cuff tear and sent me to a specialist. After conservative treatment with steroids and physical therapy, my shoulder had not improved so eventually I underwent shoulder surgery to free up the shoulder impingement.

By now, I had been away from the golf course for nearly six months and was not too happy when my surgeon imformed me that I was looking at anything up to an 18 month recuperation period. I had a couple of weeks off work to rest my arm, post op,so decided to spend the time researching shoulder injuries on the internet. Typing one handed slows you down a bit but I persevered.

I found out that physical therapy is the key to a full recovery. This is equally true of simp[le shoulder injuries as well as recovery from surgery. So once my surgery wounds had healed I started exercising. By now my shoulder was weak so I had to start with passive exercises, designed to maintain mobility and then gradually introduced low weight, low resistance exercises to strengthen the muscles.

The aim is not focus purely on the rotator cuff but to focus on every muscle that is involved in shoulder movement. A rotator cuff tear is unlikely to mend quickly but you can still have a healthy fully working shoulder if you strengthen all the muscles. They in turn support the rotator cuff taking the strain and letting it heal more quickly.

There are two secrets to a successful shoulder exercise programme. One is to make sure that you allow the muscles to rest properly in order that they can heal?beforehand, the other is that you build up the exercises gradually, being very careful to avoid any exercise that causes you pain. In shoulders, pain invariably means that you are causing more damage.

I managed to reduce the eighteen months down to four months and have been playing golf again now for about eight weeks. The sweetener in this whole episode is that I now find myself hitting the ball about ten percent further on the fairways.