Answering A Query.

• By vishwa on Health

• May 23, 2011

A gym client of mine asked me about shoulder stress injuries and the treatment for the same. These are my thoughts.

Importantly, you should rest (active) your shoulders. When I suggest active rest it would mean that physical activities have to be executed without hurting the injured part (shoulder). It would also mean that you should avoid movements which may cause the pain to resurface or even aggravate. We want the injury to heal, which will take many days or even months depending on the nature of the injury. Once you think the pain has reduced considerably, you can slowly start performing shouldering strengthening movements. Perhaps, you may find the shoulders to have lost its mobility and flexibility after the injury has healed. The laxity in the shoulders is an occurrence because of scar tissue emergence. Static stretches have now been proved that they play an important role in the breakdown of scar tissues. So, static stretches have to be employed to gain back the mobility and flexibility of the shoulder.

As far as the speeding up of healing process is concerned, I have found ice pack to do wonders. Vitamin C and E are also known to reduce inflammation.

PS: In these 14 years of my weight training journey, I have come across many shoulder injuries. I research as much as I can to know more about injuries and their prevention. Though injuries are a definite smack on the face they are also our very good teachers, for they do indicate that something is wrong with our diet, weight training regime, or lifestyle. The subject of injury prevention has fascinated me and it continues to do so. Earlier I was dead against performing static stretches but now I do not have any hiccups in admitting that they truly benefit when it comes to injury rehabilitation.