How the Rotator Cuff Stabilizes the Shoulder

the rotator cuff is important to the
movement of the shoulder and can be
aggravated by a number of activities hi
I’m Rebecca Braden and welcome to
watchmojo.com and today our host
Veronica went down to xfit to learn more
about the rotator cuff and what symptoms
we should look for in terms of an injury
so how does the shoulder work the
shoulder is a ball and a shallow socket
it’s very freely movable which is why
you can have a lot of injuries in the
shoulder this part here the shoulder
blade part is quite flat but there’s
many many muscles that are surrounding
both areas that provide motion stability
and the ability to do pretty much
anything that you do do with your arm
now what causes chairs in the rotator
cuff its more common when people are
doing overuse repetitive use in an
overhead position and if a rotator cuff
muscle group isn’t healthy then this
person can stand to get injured or torn
as well rotator cuffs can get torn or
injured just by a traumatic event maybe
someone that’s an athlete that’s using
their arm a lot or that falls on their
arm or uses their arm to brace brace
their themselves as they get tackled for
example or hit into the boards then you
can just have a traumatic injury there
imbalance is another area where there
could be an injury if someone’s only
training their chest and their biceps
it’s going to tend to have an improper
movement in the shoulder and can cause
an rotator cuff injury what are some
rotator cuff symptoms well one major
symptom will be difficulty in raising
the arm up higher than the shoulder
level so the rotator cuff is really
responsible for stabilizing and
controlling the army as a whole to reach
up so if you’ve got an injury there
that’ll be tough it would also be weak
you may have a bit of trouble to put
your cereal box back up on the shelf
when is it time to seek medical help the
pain persists anything more than sort of
two weeks then it’s probably time to go
see a doctor if you can talk to
therapist or trainer and they can get it
better in less than two weeks then
hopefully there’s something that they
can make go away if it kind of continues
then maybe it’s time to seek medical
help what type of treatment would you
get in an acute scenario
inflammation is usually present and very
bothersome and it really cuts down on
someone’s function level so trying to
minimize that pain and inflammation is
usually the first strategies with
someone with chronic injury they’ll
still be pain and inflammation but it
just may not be as much they may have
some function but it might have been
function modified around the pain that
had been there for a longer period of
time that’s why I became chronic so you
still do want to address in inflammation
but it’s also very good time to be able
to address mechanics strength
flexibility and try to correct why
you’re injured in the first place what
muscles make up the rotator cuff there
are four main muscles that make up the
rotator cuff there’s the supraspinatus
infraspinatus teres minor and
subscapularis so those four muscles make
up the rotator cuff and form a cuff
around the head of the humerus connected
to the shoulder what can you do to help
strengthen your rotator cuff you want to
treat it well you want to address it and
it tends to maybe be a muscle that you
don’t really see and someone doesn’t
really say hey you got a really toned
rotator cuff look at it so may not be
for the purposes of aesthetics but it’s
for the purposes of function and being
sure that it stays healthy and a long
equal balance of training the rotator
cuff as well as other muscles around the
shoulder creating good strength good
flexibility not just training those
Beach muscles the chest and biceps that
you see in the mirror you want to train
all the other muscles in the shoulder as
well thank you very much guys you’re
welcome