Any type of injury is not fun. But when you injure your shoulder? You will realize how limited your motion is when you have an injured shoulder. You use this more than you notice in day-to-day activities. Essentially, when you move, so does your shoulder. This is why injuring it can be a real pain, pun intended.

Move your head, the pain is there. Go to sleep, you can feel the pain. Pick something up, good luck!

Not only is it uncomfortable and painful, but your range of motion is severely hindered as well. Depending on the severity of the injury, you will barely be able to reach up that kitchen shelf to grab something.

While your body can heal the injury on its own, it is best to help it out. You can rest it and try to reduce the motion it does daily. Then, you can do shoulder rehab exercises to help with the process.

Shoulder Rehab Exercises at Home

The best way to rehab shoulder injuries is to rest. You can apply ice every few hours to ease the pain. At the same time, you can consult with your doctor to plan the best approach to rehabbing your injury based on your goals.

But if your goal is to ease the pain now and fight chronic pain, these shoulder rehab exercises should help you.

High to Low Rows

This is a shoulder rehab exercise that you can do using exercise bands or a cable column machine at the gym. Either way, the goal is to have a band or rope that’s positioned high which you can pull down.

To do this:

1. Get down on one knee
2. Engage your core
3. Pull your shoulders back then down
4. Pull your elbows down closer to your body
5. Slowly return to starting position

Avoid shrugging your shoulders while pulling down. At the same time, keep your elbows close to your sides. If they move away, this means that your shoulder blades aren’t pulling back and down which negates the exercise. It can also mean that the band or weight is too much.

Reverse Fly

This is done with a pair of dumbbells that are relatively lighter than what you would normally use for most other exercises.

To do this:

1. Start by standing with your feet apart. Each foot should be under each shoulder.
2. Bend your knees slightly and bend forward a bit.
3. Both arms start in front of you, essentially pointing to the floor.
4. Grab a dumbbell or weight in each hand.
5. Raise both arms slowly up and away from your body.
6. Slowly return to normal position.

When doing this exercise, you should squeeze your shoulder blades as you go up. You should also raise the weights right before your shoulder height. Never raise above your shoulder.

Lawnmower Pull

This is another good shoulder rehab exercises that make use of an exercise band. It is called the lawnmower pull because you will do a motion that is similar to starting a lawnmower.

To do this:

1. Stand with your feet apart. Hold one end of the resistance band with your injured arm. The other end is placed under your foot opposite the injured arm. The band should go diagonally across your body.
2. Place your free hand on your hips then bend your waist slightly to parallel your holding hand with the opposite knee.
3. Slowly straighten upright as you pull your elbow across your body as if you are pulling the rope of a lawnmower to start it.

When to See your Doctor for Shoulder Rehab

Most people would not go to a doctor if they simply feel slight pain or discomfort on their shoulder. But if the pain is involved, it’s always best to get a consultation right away. This could indicate a minor problem, but if left unchecked, can lead to a more serious condition.

Another clear sign that you should go and see your doctor immediately is swelling on your shoulder. This could already be a major injury that will require proper shoulder rehab exercises and therapy administered by a professional.

If you can’t raise your arm, then this is a severe injury already. You better go and see your doctor immediately.

The best way to rehab shoulder, however, is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

How to Prevent Shoulder Injuries

The best shoulder rehab exercises are the ones that you don’t have to do in order to get rid of the pain. It’s been said many times, prevention is always better than cure. With that, here are a few things you can do in order to avoid or minimize the chances of your shoulder getting injured.

Stretching

A lot of people forget to stretch before doing any strenuous activity. This is especially important if you are training or exercising since it will put a lot of strain on your body.

Stretching your shoulders allow the muscles and tendons to get their full range of motion before you do your exercise. Ideally, you can include shoulder recovery stretches in your warm-up to help prevent injuries:

Ear to Shoulder

This is one of the simplest shoulder injury exercises which you can do almost anywhere.

To do this:

1. Sit with your body straight
2. Slowly tilt your head to your right shoulder as far as you can without lifting the other shoulder
3. You can use your hand to gently pull your head down to deepen the stretch
4. Do this again for your left shoulder

Cross Arm Stretch

This is a favorite shoulder stretch of many athletes as it gives a really good and deep stretch for the muscles and tendons.

To do this:

1. Standing straight, put your right arm across your chest, reaching to the other side.
2. You can gently push your right elbow with your free hand to engage the stretch more.
3. Do this for the other side.

Shoulder Raises

Another simple but effective stretch for your shoulders is to simply raise them properly.

To do this:

1. You can stand or sit straight
2. Place your arms to your sides
3. Lift your shoulders slowly toward your ears
4. Hold for a few seconds
5. Slowly lower back to the original position

You can repeat this a few times.

Strengthen your Shoulders

Another way to prevent having to do shoulder rehab exercises is to train them. You should do shoulder exercises in order to strengthen the muscles and tendons. In doing this, they become more durable as well.

Shoulder exercises are usually missed by runners and cyclists since they concentrate on their lower bodies. But, as with everything else in life, balance is the key. Even if your sport calls for mostly lower body strength, you need to exercise the entire body.

Lifting weights for example to strengthen the shoulders can help runners avoid injuries when swinging their arms.

The shoulder rehab exercises mentioned earlier can be a good starting point to include in your workout.

Exercise the Right Way

When it comes to preventing injuries and avoiding having to do shoulder rehab exercises, you have to concentrate on doing things the right way. There are three aspects to this:

Technique

A proper technique has been developed for different sports and activities. This is done for good reasons. One is so that you can perform in an efficient manner, the other is so you do not go about and damage your body.

A good example of this would be how you lift weights. It does not matter how heavy the weights you can lift if you do not do it properly. This will cause damage to your body and do more harm than good.

Another point when it comes to your technique is your running form. If you have too much shoulder movement or tense up too much as you run, you could injure your shoulder in the long run.

Planning

Part of exercising the right way is having a proper training plan. Do not just have the same exercise over and over again on successive days. As mentioned earlier, the goal is a complete body workout to become healthy and perform the best that you can.

So, for example, you can do 3 days of cardio exercises per week and 3 days of strength training at home or in the gym. Of course, it’s best that you do this alternately. And put in some variety with the cardio and strength exercises while you’re at it.

And as you would notice, that’s just 6 days in a week. That’s because the last day should be reserved for another important aspect of preventing injury and training responsibly; resting.

Resting

Performance gains are not just about going max effort all the time. It is vital to give your body an ample amount of time to rest and recover from strenuous activities that you do.

If you train at max effort today, you might want to tone it a bit down tomorrow. Then, of course, give yourself at least one day off a week so your body can recover properly.

Resting is actually a very crucial part of ensuring that you don’t get injured and have to do shoulder rehab exercises.