How to help a rotator cuff

Here is a photo of a situation that has embraced Chaos! This Callery pear tree is on the grounds of the 9/11 Memorial. Notice the extra bands around the base of the tree to help support it, and if you look closely you can see the burnt sections of bark. However, with a little love and attention, this tree survived and thrives today to tell it’s story. 

So can you! 
 
Whenever something hurts, to me it feels like a little chaos has descended on my life. 
Consider it an opportunity to give yourself a little more love and attention to a part of the body that might need some help. 

In today’s blog, I wanted to target a frequently neglected area of the body in the shoulder called the rotator cuff. Have you had this spot hurt ever or know someone who has? Here’s how you will know: Ever had trouble lifting your arm up over your head to put a sweater on? The usual suspect is the rotator cuff when that happens. 

Here are the four muscles that make up the rotator cuff. Their basic job is to suck the humerus (upper arm bone) into the socket and keep it there. 

This one is called the infraspinatus:

Here’s the supraspinatus:

This guy is the subscapularis….

And finally the Teres Major (it has a Teres Minor friend). 

How would I help these four rotator cuff muscles? 

The first thing I would try is to break loose the three classic tight spots around the shoulder: the chest or pectoralis muscle, the shoulder blade itself, and the bicep muscle on the front of the arm. I made a YouTube video – How to loosen up your neck and shoulders –  https://youtu.be/MpYxDZNs9EY  to demo that awhile ago. 

Next, I would address the three basic directions the shoulder blade is supposed to move. Those are: up and down, side to side or in and out, and rotational. 

Here is a video on how to strengthen two of the three directions .. in your kitchen! 

Let me know in the comments below how you like the exercises and if they impacted how your shoulder feels. If your shoulder doesn’t hurt, consider trying them out to PREVENT anything from negatively impacting how your shoulder moves and feels. Take that chaos head on!