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Physique Global

shoulder impingement syndrome

Impingement syndrome is a long term cause of shoulder pain. This is due to the entrapment of rotator cuff tendons and when they are compressed during the shoulder movements causes irritation and pain. It can progress in life to become a source of disability.

The impingement syndrome is also associated with bicep tendonitis (inflammation of the long head of the bicep brachii muscle tendon), subacromial bursitis and also due to tear of rotator cuff tendon. The most common factor for the impingement syndrome is the muscular imbalance at the shoulder region.

This imbalance is due to the highly trained internal rotators and external rotators weakness. This muscular imbalance can result in postural abnormalities such as rounded shoulder, limit in the range of motion at the shoulder joint etc.The earlier stage symptoms of impingement syndrome are mild pain at the shoulder during an activities such as lifting, reaching, throwing, overhead activities and when symptoms are not rectified at the earlier stage, symptoms such as pain at night, difficulty in performing activities using our arm placed at the back are observed at the later stage.

Early stages of the treatment would include resting, avoiding activities which aggravates the pain, a good physiotherapy program is also necessary for the strengthening of shoulder muscles as they are also responsible for stabilising the shoulder joint. Surgery may be needed if condition is very severe. If you observe any of the symptoms mentioned above please visit a doctor.

Prevention is better than cure, the preventive measures which should be taken to avoid any such condition by educating, specially the people who are the risk due to the nature of their  activities(swimmers, baseball players, tennis players etc), lifting of weights with proper techniques, maintaining the muscular balance at the shoulder region as overtraining of anterior deltoids, pectoralis major, over trained internal rotators and weak external rotators lead to rounded shoulder therefore in such cases strengthening of external rotators and stretching of internal rotators should be done and also the posterior deltoids should not be lag behind so prioritize your training depending upon your weaker muscles. At last good stretching regime(dynamic, static stretching) should be incorporated with your workouts.