jessephysio

Last week on my blog I wrote about what I had learned in my 4th year of practice. One thing I mentioned was that I now use dynamic or rhythmic shoulder stabilization exercises much more then ever before. I now use them as much if not more than good old fashion concentric-eccentric cuff strengthening. This quick video post is going to explain this almost too simple to work exercise and why I think it helps.

The reason I like this so much is that the test becomes the exercise. If I do this band assisted stabilization exercise and it makes immediate changes in pain free AROM of the shoulder, I have instant patient buy in and then prescribe a variant of it for home use.  The next time you have a patient with a painful shoulder arch or too much upper trap activation with abduction, lay them on your treatment table and preform this exercise with them for 1-2 minutes  and then re-test their AROM. I have done this in clinic with some pretty great results. I love the “wow” factor patients have because something so simple and quick can change their pain…and the best part is that you don’t even have to do any manual therapy. I often complement this exercise with the explanation that if it helps it means the patient has full control over getting better and they don’t need any fancy manual techniques to improve. How liberating is that for the patient?!

I explain in the video why I think it works, but that is just an educated guess. If you have another explanation I would be more than happy to hear it!

Thanks and best of luck