Winterizing your shoulder: preparing your shoulder for the spring season

So, you're an athlete who specializes in playing overhead sports (baseball, tennis, lax, softball, etc) and you've finished fall ball, itching for the spring season to come sooner than later. How exactly do you keep your shoulder safe and sound?

Work on Your Posture! Huh? What does posture have anything to with the shoulder? It has EVERYTHING to do with keeping your shoulders working at its best. Practicing good posture while incorporating seated rows, bent over rows, and scap retraction exercises may be helpful in keeping the coast clear of potential shoulder injuries.

Back to Basics- You may THINK you know everything there is to pitching, serving, shooting, and throwing a ball, but now is a GREAT time to get some seasoned eyes on your form and technique to make sure you're recruiting the right muscles for your sport's demands.

The Rotator Cuff: To Strengthen or Not To Strengthen? I see many overhead athletes using preventative shoulder injury exercises emphasizing rotator cuff strengthening. Great. I like seeing more and more people utilizing these exercises in the gym setting as well. However, if you have a shoulder injury, strengthening the rotator cuff muscles may not be the best thing and, in fact, may worsen your shoulder pain. Conversely, incorporating rotator cuff strengthening exercises may be a great way to keep your muscles ready for the upcoming season.

If you have pain during overhead activities, you should first seek medical attention before attempting to do these types of exercises.

Dynamic Trunk Stabilization: What's that? In layman's terms, working "the core" muscles. However, physical therapists and other healthcare and wellness professionals try to refrain from using the term, "core strengthening", because it has been erroneously equated to exercises used to develop the six-pack (or, rectus abdominus), which is far from the truth.

We're talking about getting the deep transverse abdominus muscles (which aren't visible) to work synchronously with the hip/pelvis muscles to provide a dynamically stable base of support, hence, dynamic trunk stabilization.

A dynamically stabilized trunk provides better power and improved stamina to your shoulder muscles during repetitive, overhead activities; in essence, you're creating a powerful "slingshot" effect by having your shoulders launch an object from a stabilized platform (deep abdominal muscles, hips, and pelvis). If you compare the relative size of your shoulder muscles to that of your hips, abdominals, and pelvis, you can appreciate why dynamic trunk stabilization is important in protecting your shoulders for the long haul.

That all said, exercising the right muscles, the right way, will help you keep your shoulder well- prepared for the spring onslaught!!

If you want more specific advice about your shoulder and exercises to help prevent shoulder injury, please contact Dr. Yoo at mavenoffice@gmail.com.

Dr. Jerry Yoo
Clinical Director/Co-Owner of Maven Sports Medicine