 Hi, I'm Dr. Molly with Your Goals Physical Therapy. If your family is anything close to how mine is, we love to spend Houston summers near a beach, or at least near a body of water. Swimming is great, but there's something about the beach, even though Galveston is definitely not an ideal beach. It is what we have. It's just so fun. You get to go play in the sand, build sand castles, look for shells, play on the waves, all these fun things. It's also fun because you can bring simple toys like balls and Frisbees and have hours of fun out in the open, as long as you're applying lots and lots of sunscreen and of course, lots and lots of water. That's what I wanted to talk about in this video. What happens if you spend a really fun weekend playing with your kids, let's say with beach volleyball and all of a sudden you notice that your shoulder is very angry with you, and it's not just going away in one or two days. What do you do if you've injured your shoulder while playing beach volleyball, let's talk about that. First, I'm gonna go over a little bit of the mechanics that happen when you're playing volleyball, especially if you're showing people how to do an overhand serve, and then we're gonna talk about some do’s, some things you can do right now, right after you get off this video. We’ll talk about some things that you should be avoiding, so please do not do them. Then how to get, if it's still lingering, you a little bit of extra help, how you can get help without having to delay your healing, okay. Okay, first our shoulders are amazing. They move in basically 360 degrees, right? You can move them all the way around. The only thing is we very rarely do that. Most of my day is spent on a computer or down below my shoulder, right? I mean, if I'm putting away dishes, maybe I'm hanging something up, my arms are over my head. But for the most part, they spend a lot of time shoulder, height, and below. That's how you put your dishes away. That's how you do most things in life. Then here comes beach volleyball, which is so much fun. It always makes you think of being back in grade school, playing with your friends, it's just a fun memory. Now you get to play it with your kids. If you're competitive at least even a little bit with your kids. Then as they get better, you try to up your game and they try to up theirs, so you go back and forth and you can think that a little simple instruction on how you're gonna throw and serve again, is gonna take five or 10 minutes and then two hours has passed. Here you thought that this was gonna be a short little demonstration, and then there's a lot of back and forth. You get really into the game and then you realize, “I've been playing this for a very long time. That shoulder that was aching yesterday is very, very angry right now and it's not going away.” We're gonna talk about why it is that with that overhand serve, it now hurts for most of us. We spend a lot of time at our desks, like I was saying. We get really curved forward or even slightly. And what that does is that reduces the space that is available inside of our shoulder. If I am not used to raising my arm, then I probably think it being in front of my face is pretty straight, but to do the serves and to be fancy with it, you're really cranking it back. You're probably pushing your arm way further back than you need to. Your arm being over your head but bent slightly forward is probably comfortable for most people, but to serve and you get really aggressive with it and you're jamming it back. The other sad thing is that sometimes you can get it from your actual shoulder being flexible, and sometimes you get it from your back. You could actually have a back injury from this too, you would think it was uncommon, but we all do silly things sometimes. We just don't think about how we're moving, which makes sense. Why would you be thinking about that? So again, if you're used to being slightly in front of you and this is where your flexibility is, you're really cramming it back. Then something is giving, that's not used to giving. Something got really stretched and something was probably jammed, over time the ligament that got smooshed a whole lot, while you were doing that, got irritated. The bones were rubbing up against it. It just gets irritated. That's where that achy, possibly burning sensation. It could also make it harder to move your arm. So if you're dealing with any kind of weakness or it really just doesn't wanna get up, all of that is part of the same thing. If you can move your arm to shoulder level in front of you and then it starts to get achy or very uncomfortable, you don't have to automatically assume that you have a tear that's gonna require surgery or require a major catastrophic thing to occur. You don't automatically need a cortisone shot. You don't automatically need years and years of rehab. It really could just be slightly annoyed and it just needs time to heal. Let's talk about how to make that happen right now. You're gonna get off this video. You're gonna go do a couple of these things. One ice. I know everybody, especially in Houston, we seem to really like heat, we hold onto that. It's already warmed up if it got pinched, it's irritated in that manner. It's hard to raise it up, that ligament, that muscle are already very warm. In fact, they're inflamed and they're swollen and they're agitated. The best shot that you have for reducing some of that is an ice pack. Just 10 minutes. Now I say ice pack. It could be something that you buy fancy at the store. It could be a bag of ice. It could be a bag of peas, something cold that you just lay over. Most people don't want to have to hold it. If it's a bag of peas and you can drape it over and just keep it there for your comfort level and for convenience, that's the best thing. You really don't need to keep it there for very long. 10 minutes will get you a whole lot of relief if that's gonna help. Okay. Now after the ice, maybe the next day, you let it calm down a little bit. Start stretching the front of your chest. I know that seems weird, right? But if you stretch out your chest, there can be a whole lot of relief for your shoulder. Oh, well, how do you stretch that? I'm gonna give you two choices. You can lay flat on the floor and bring your arms spread out. If I was laying on the floor, just let it hang. If this isn't tight, then you can try to bring your arms up over your head spread out. If you can get your elbows to the floor, perfect. If not, place a pillow wherever you need to. You would place the pillow back behind your upper arm and just let it hang, it feels wonderful. If you're not really comfortable laying on the floor for a variety of reasons, there's always the Peck stretch where you put your elbow in the door frame. I have a video for that, I can attach it. You would just use that to stretch the front of your shoulder. You don't have to be aggressive with these. In fact, I would implore you not to be aggressive. Be gentle, go right until you feel a little bit of a pull, you're gonna hold the stretch for 30 seconds to 60 seconds and then let it go. You just get to where you feel a pull and then hang out for 30 seconds to a minute, repeat that as many times as you feel comfortable, you really can't overstretch it. If you feel a little bit of relief, then let it relax for a little bit and go back to it. The other thing you can do is a lot of times when our shoulders get really achy, they don't like sleep. You either don't like laying on it or you don't like having it hang. My suggestion is to find a pillow and basically hug it. You really just want it to be in front of you just a little bit, just so your arm has a place to rest, and you're just gonna relax your shoulder. That way your, when your elbow and your lower arm are supported, your shoulder will relax. Having it a little bit away from your body, gives it the best amount of blood flow. Those would be the things that I would do immediately. Things that I would not do, please avoid this. Don't hold your arm so stiff that you make an already irritated thing, more irritated. The worst thing you can do for an overworked muscle is to keep it confined into one location. As long as it does not make your pain level go up, doesn't get more irritated. Let your arm hang and swing just as naturally as possible. I'm not talking about running, but you do want to just let your arm naturally swing because that'll allow some blood flow, some little muscle contractions. It helps the fluid that's been trapped in there from playing volleyball on the beach, all of that will kind of pump itself out. Those are the things that I would do immediately. Now, if you're kind of a “do it yourself” and it's still a little annoyed, then I would start strengthening your shoulder, strengthening your upper back and stretching the front of your chest. And all of those things will help you calm down that shoulder. You could try massaging, going and getting a massage, because sometimes that can actually help release a lot of things, especially if it was built up. There's a lot of muscle tension in there, also good. I'm a big fan of massages. Let's say we're getting into like week three, four, maybe even five. This is still lingering. You're looking for a little bit more specific information for your condition and what's happening with your shoulder because not everybody's exactly the same and not everything works exactly the same for every person. That's what I help people do. I help you figure out what the best exercise is for you to help your shoulder heal. I do that without having to make you wait to see an MRI without suggesting you get a cortisone shot and without just handing you a sheet of paper that has some very generic exercises and it's been xeroxed a hundred times, I give you specifically based on what your physical exam shows me, we give you very specialized exercises for you. I don't use a cookie cutter system for everybody. That means that not just because you come in with a shoulder injury, doesn't mean that everybody with a shoulder injury gets these exact exercises because we're all different. We all have different goals. We all have different lifestyles. We're just all different. So that is what I offers my clients. If this is the type of service that you're looking for to help you get back to playing beach volleyball, even better than you did the first time. I have two ways for you to get ahold of me. The first one would be a discovery visit. A discovery visit is a 20 minute session where we just chat. We find out if we're a good fit and if I can help you get to your goal. If your goal is to get back to volleyball, that's what we would work on. If your goal is to sleep without having pain, that is what we're gonna work on. That 20 minute session is free. There's no treatment just to be clear, there's no treatment, we're just gonna talk, make sure I'll do a quick little screening just to make sure that I really can help you. That we're just making sure that we're gonna work together well. And obviously we get to meet in person. The other option, that's a little bit more detailed. If you've been lingering with this and you're like, “Dude, I have tried everything. What could it be that you can offer me that I can't just do on my own?” I offer a full body diagnostic. That is a $20 charge. It's still a 20 to 30 minute session time, but I will do a little bit more in the sense of like a movement screening. We'll be a little bit more intense and a little bit more intentional about what we're looking for so that we can show you whether or not we can or cannot help you in both cases. If I am not the right person for you, I'm gonna help you figure out who the right person is. I'm not gonna just let you flounder about by yourself. The goal, no matter what, when anybody calls me is that we help them try to navigate through this very confusing medical world. Because without question, it can be very hard to figure out who the right person is to help you. I offer these just to make sure that I am the correct option for you. If I'm not, I'm not gonna just create something and force you into my clinic. We're gonna find the right person for you because that is the best outcome for you. So I hope that you are having a great beach day during this wonderful summer. Bye! Want more blog posts like this? Check out the links below! The dos and fonts of the chest pec stretch why does my shoulder hurt all the time are you wondering how to walk on the beach without hurting afterwards
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
WE HELP ACTIVE ADULTS OVERCOME THEIR ACHES AND PAINS TO GET THEM BACK TO THEIR FAVORITE ACTIVITIES WITHOUT MEDICATION, INJECTIONS OR SURGERIES.
Dr. Molly McDonald
|
RSS Feed
Location |
|