Freddy Sanchez's Rotator Cuff Injury - Again?
by Dr. Kareem Samhouri author of Double Edged Fat Loss

Last September Freddy Sanchez went through arthroscopic surgery of his shoulder. Yesterday, sportsnetwork.com wrote about Mr. Sanchez experiencing inflammation in his right shoulder. Naturally, the question is: Are these two situations linked? Following one shoulder injury, are you more likely to suffer a second (rotator cuff) shoulder injury?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes, always. However, there is something that you can do to greatly reduce your chances of experiencing a second injury to the same shoulder: you can strengthen your shoulder girdle, thereby reducing the amount of stress placed into injury-prone tissues such as ligaments, the shoulder capsule, labrum, and cartilage. By improving posture and strengthening the muscles in your shoulder in a specific order, you can greatly reduce the opportunity for re-injury in most shoulder conditions. In fact, depending on your pre-morbid (previous to injury) fitness level, you may be able to strengthen your shoulder beyond its previous strength. Typically, muscles surrounding your shoulder should be strengthened back to front, although this is dependent upon the injury. As a general statement, strengthening all symptom-free movements is a good idea.

The next time that you get injured, rather than thinking about 'getting back to the old me,' I'd like you to think about injury as a sign to improve your overall health and decrease the risk of future injury. Let's use pain and injury to our shoulders as sign to get more fit. Through increased strength and fitness levels, we are delivering more blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the injured tissue, thereby speeding up the rate of healing by leaps and bounds.

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