Protecting Your Rotator Cuff During Exercise

Its a subject that's rarely talked about until its too late: Protecting the Rotator Cuff muscles. These muscles are of critical importance in that they resist the force of gravity in order to support the arm while it is held in the transverse plane (an example of holding your arm in the transverse plane is to stretch them straight out with your fingers point to your right and left).

Injuries to the rotator cuff muscles are of the most common that you will find among people who regularly engage in lifting activities, working out to lose weight included.

The actutal cause of the injuries fall into one of the following categories:

• improper or insufficient warm up
• overuse
• excessive behind-the-neck repetitions

Rotator cuff injury often leads to an inflammation of the muscle group which is known as impingement syndrome.

Impingement syndrome is the result of the scapula bone pinching swollen rotator cuff muscles. This condition is very painful and is often aggravated by any moderate to heavy rotator cuff muscle use. It is characterized by the feeling of a very sharp pinch in the area of the scapula (the lower portion of the rear shoulder joint).

Here are some helpful tips to help you to avoid most rotator cuff injury, inflammation, and complications:

1. Always warm up before using the shoulder joint by rotating the arm in full circles both forwards and backwards while holding a very light (2 to 5lbs) weight or no weight all depending on individual strength.

2. Avoid behind-the-neck exercises.

3. Avoid extremely heavy weights and high repetitions when the rotator cuffs are involved in movement.