Rotator Cuff Injury Exercises Sorted out My Shoulder Quicker Than I Could Have Imagined

I had the misfortune to tear one of the tendons in my left rotator cuff a few months back. It was very simple. I was helping a friend put up a timber garage and when the wind caught one of the pieces I instinctively reached out to stop it falling. That was my first mistake, the second was not to let go again. I felt a pop in my shoulder and that was it, job done! Or should I say shoulder done.

It turned out that the pop I heard at the time was my tendon getting torn. It was only a small tear but the tendon became inflamed and the inflammation meant that I ended up with an impinged shoulder. The swollen tendon was getting caught on a piece of bone and gradually getting worn away.

Various treatments were tried including steroid injections, acupuncture to help with the pain and physical therapy, but in the end the doctor booked me for surgery. The plan was to shave away the piece of bone that the tendon was getting caught on. This would give the tendon more room to move and allow it to heal.

The surgery went well. It was keyhole surgery and I was in and out of hospital all in about six hours. It was at this time that the surgeon explained that I could be facing up to eighteen months recuperation because the tear had turned out to be quite bad, made worse by the shoulder impingement.

I started researching shoulder injuries to see if there was any way of speeding this up and found out that rotator cuff injury exercises are a major part of shoulder rehabilitation.

Rotator cuff problems can come about in a number of different ways but whether it is an accident like mine, general wear and tear from age or a sporting or work injury, exercise will form a big part of the recovery.

So after resting my shoulder for about four weeks to let the surgery site heal, I began exercising: not just my rotator cuff but my whole shoulder. There are twenty two different muscles involved in shoulder movement and if you want to recover quickly you need to exercise all of them to wake them up and get them helping the rotator cuff.

These are not the sort of exercises that use big weights or high resistance. Your rotator cuff is made up of four fairly small muscles and if you want to exercise them you need to use shoulder specific exercises that work on the rotator cuff muscles.

Over the following weeks my shoulder gradually got stronger, the movement came back and I could feel it getting better on almost a daily basis. To cut a long story short, I am now back playing golf, with full pain free movement in my shoulder and I managed that in just four months which I was delighted with.

I am still doing the exercises on a regular basis because I have found out that it is weakness of the rotator cuff that causes most shoulder injuries and one shoulder operation is enough for me. So I am going to look after my shoulders from now on!

If you found this article interesting and would like to know more about how rotator cuff injury exercises got my shoulder working again check out my blog at

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