Shoulders

Most shoulder pain is a result of too much, too soon, too often.

Become Pain Free with our 3-Step Rehab Solution.

The Mighty Shoulder

Your body is amazingly robust and adaptable, when you give it the right stimulus over a period of time, it progressively acquires more Movement Capacity.

Your shoulder is no exception, given the right training and an appropriate schedule, it continues to adapt giving you more and more capacity for more complex and demanding movement.

The shoulder joint is uniquely incredible. It is the most mobile joint in the body yet it can also support an immense load, such as your entire body weight in a handstand. When you’re doing a handspring on a spinning dance pole, it actually takes more than your body weight due to centrifugal force!

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Tendon Troubles

As awesome as your shoulder is, it can still succumb to pain and injuries.

Tendinopathy is the most common shoulder complaint and it often seems to have a “mysterious” origin – You’re happily enjoying your (often new) favourite movement activity and one day, out of nowhere, you start to feel some stiffness and/or a little niggle in your shoulder. You think it’s nothing and that it will go away, a few weeks later, it not only hasn’t gone away, but is now starting to interfere with you doing handstand, pole dancing, Yoga…. etc. You ask yourself “What have I done? I don’t recall any incident that could explain my shoulder pain at all?

The physiological processes that “make you more awesome” takes time to happen, take collagen synthesis for example, the cellular processes continue “under the hood” for up to 48 hours after your activity!

This means there is a lag from activity to outcome, and this goes for both positive and negative outcomes : 

  • It takes time to get stronger.
  • It takes time for a Capacity Deficit to show up.

Which means there is indeed a perfectly good explanation for your shoulder pain, only the reason is “invisible” and flies under the radar for weeks before it is detected. This is an exceedingly common presentation for shoulder tendinopathy – you do too much too soon, your body isn’t ready for all the fun and grumbles at you with stiffness and niggles.

In other words, stiffness and niggles are often the first signs of a Capacity Deficit.

3 Steps to Pain-Free Shoulders

With this valuable information in mind, overcoming shoulder tendinopathy becomes a matter of eliminating your Capacity Deficit and improving your Movement Capacity.

Here’s our 3-step approach:

  1. Stop Getting Worse
  2. Bridge The Gap
  3. Build A Buffer 
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MoveMedics-Demands-of-Movement-vs-Movement-Capacity-Graph

As you can see, overcoming shoulder tendinopathy is a straightforward process though it doesn’t mean it is easy. The good news is you don’t have to do it alone!

Your physiotherapist can help you determine your sweet spot of activity, your missing pieces, and help you build a generous buffer so you can enjoy doing what you love for as long as you want.

The 5 no-no’s For Tendon Pain

Here’re a list of what NOT to do if you have tendon pain.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, rather, it highlights the latest research findings on tendon rehab. We have come a long way from the old ways of treating tendinopathy, gone are the days of routine rest and anti-inflammatory for “tendonitis”. Did you know there is actually very little to no inflammation present in tendinopathies at all?

The field of tendon research is vibrant and ever-evolving, which means we are getting better and better at treating and preventing tendon issues, and being able to apply the most cutting-edge in science and medical research to get results more effectively is most exciting indeed!

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