Many of the patients I see are playing sport of some kind, including Ironman distance triathlons, Powerlifting and Brazilian jiujitsu at either the amateur or world level. As an expert sports physiotherapist, many of these sports people see me for shoulder related pain. The pain can be after a particular incident where they have heard a pop or clunk or the pain can be intermittent (comes and goes), frequently I see tendon related pain associated with instability.
When the shoulder is asked to perform high strength or repetitive movements but you haven’t strength trained the rotator cuff or the active stabilisers of the shoulder blade, you often end up with an over worked tendon that presents as rotator cuff pain. When you keep working through this pain instead of seeing a specialist, you generally end up with a chronic tendinopathy of the supraspinatus muscle.
Tendinopathy is a degenerative condition and needs sports physiotherapy specialist treatment, simple massage or electrostimulation isn’t going to do much. My favorite, and most successful method to help the tendon heal is Focal shockwave.
When tendons are stuck in a chronic condition, they need something to force them into the healing stage of rehabilitation – this is where shockwave therapy really helps.
When a patient first experiences properly applied shockwave, they can have an immediate reduction in pain and symptoms, which allows them to be able to start exercise rehabilitation straight away, shortening the amount of time they can return to sport.
In conjunction to shockwave therapy, a properly, thought out rehabilitation plan is needed to strengthen and stabilise the entire shoulder girdle, so you can produce the power needed from your shoulder joint – pain free.
If you need help with your shoulder pain, our sports physiotherapy specialist is all set and ready to assist you. So book to see us and we will have you back playing the sport you love.
