by Geoffrey Hogan (M.Ost)
The shoulder is such an interesting joint, one of the most complex in the body. This joint has to allow the biggest, most dynamic range of movement of any joint in the body whilst still being able to support and stabilise large forces.
What’s even more impressive is that the shoulder joint manages to do this with a lot less support from ligaments compared to a joint such as the hip. If the ligament support was too strong then the shoulder would be much less flexible, so this reduced ligament support enables the extreme range of movement that the shoulder is capable of.
The shoulder compensates for this reduced ligament support using a group of muscles called the rotator cuff which provides dynamic stabilisation that can adapt to the many positions the joint is capable of. Rotator cuff injuries are actually the most common shoulder injuries we see at the clinic.
These rotator cuff muscles provide a lot of the stability to the shoulder that would otherwise be provided by ligaments, and yet simultaneously these muscles have to produce the power required to move the shoulder joint, along with very large powerful muscles such as the pectoralis major, trapezius and latissimus dorsi.
Usually an imbalance in these muscles will be found when the shoulder is injured. This is why shoulder injuries can be complicated to recover from and often they need treatment to help them to get better.
If you have a shoulder injury that isn’t much better after a few days, it would be worth having an evaluation and treatment to get you on the road to recovery.
Osteopathy treatment helps to restore balance to the shoulder muscles and addresses tensions coming from neighbouring areas such as the neck and upper back also. This can greatly accelerate the rate of recovery from a shoulder injury whilst providing the tools to prevent the injury from reoccurring in the future.
Farringdon Osteopaths