The anatomy of your rotator cuff

Your rotator cuff is a series of 4 muscles that surround your shoulder joint.  Their main job is to guide the way your shoulder moves so that the complex motions that have to occur do so smoothly.  Your rotator cuff is made up of these 4 important muscles:

1. •Supraspinatus
   

2. •Infraspinatus
   

3. •Teres Minor
   

4. •Subscapularis
   

The normal movement of your shoulder reaching up overhead occurs when your rotator cuff pulls down and in towards your body.  This offsets the powerful deltoid muscle’s pull up.

How a rotator cuff injury can cause shoulder pain

Your rotator cuff needs to be strong and flexible in order to do its job of properly moving your shoulder.  Very often, we see patients with shoulder pain due to rotator cuff injury from weakness and tears.  Rotator cuff muscles can become weakened from poor posture, heavy lifting, repetitive reaching, and injuries such as catching yourself when falling. 

When the rotator cuff muscles become weakened they do not function properly causing a jamming of your humerus bone into the joint space.  This causes irritation and inflammation.  You may feel sharp shoulder pain, pain in the shoulder blade, pain in the neck and shoulder, or even pain running down the side of your arm. 

Sometimes, from a previous rotator cuff injury or repetitive lifting you may have a tear in your rotator cuff.  Most often, this is a partial tear of the rotator cuff muscle.  Your muscle and tendon still work, but are not fully intact.  Depending on your age and activity level, you probably will not need surgery.  However, in some severe cases, surgery is needed to repair the tear, especially if the tendon is completely torn.

Your shoulder is very complex and needs physical therapist specialists trained to evaluate the rotator cuff.  The AIM Physical Therapy method is a unique hands-on manual physical therapy approach that thoroughly examines your rotator cuff problem.  Special tests will be performed to determine which particular rotator cuff is causing your problem.  Our therapists thoroughly examine your bio-mechanical movement and then develop a specific treatment plan to restore your shoulder’s natural movement and strength.

Our manual therapy treatment approach and customized strengthening programs will get you back in the game in a short time.  We work with your doctor to coordinate your treatment and if you have had any testing such as MRI’s or x-rays we encourage you to bring them in during your evaluation so our therapists can review them.