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What is Rotator Cuff Tendinopathy?

Writer's picture: Jessica HeJessica He

Rotator cuff tendinopathy is a common cause of shoulder pain as you age, if your job involves regular lifting, if you have recently started going to the gym or increased your weights, or if you participate in an overhead sport. 


What is A Rotator Cuff?


The rotator cuff is made up of a set of muscles surrounding your shoulder blades: supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis . These muscles provide stability to the highly mobile shoulder joint and assist in executing arm movements.



What is Tendinopathy?


Tendons are tissues that connect our muscles to bones, and help us with performing explosive and spring like movements. In the images above, the tendon is the white portion and the muscle is the red portion of the highlighted muscle. Tendinopathy is caused by excessive loading of a tendon, and leads to pain, reduced strength and power, and reduced capacity on what we can do in our day to day tasks.


How Long Does it Last? 


Realistically, rehabilitation time frames take at least 3-months and timeframes vary from person to person. Rehabilitation is typically guided by achieving specific milestones around function and tendon capacity that eventually leads to a return to your previous activities.


What Can I Do?


Shoulder pain can be very frustrating, and can limit us from performing a lot of our daily activities confidently. Temporarily stop activities that increase shoulder pain. This may include arms over the head, pushing through the arm, and heavy lifting.


A massage ball to the back of the shoulder blade and into your upper traps can help with short term pain relief. 


In the early stages of treatment, goals are centred on reducing your pain. In mid to later stages, strengthening of your shoulder is essential for rehabilitating a tendinopathy and reducing the risk of it coming back. 


Below are two examples of shoulder strength exercises. These exercises should be performed slowly throughout the whole movement. The recommended amount of exercise is 6 to 12 repetitions, 3 to 4 sets, to be repeated 3 times a week. Your shoulder should feel tired after each set.


Exercise 1


Exercise 2


While we haven’t demonstrated this in this blog, it is very important to include explosive and fast movements into the later stages of your rehabilitation. A member of our E4 Physio team can assist you with incorporating further movements into a rehabilitation program.


Take The ASH Test at E4 Physio


Here is a video demonstration of the ASH test, which is highly important for people who participate in overhead sports.


The ASH Test assesses shoulder strength and explosiveness in overhead positions. Results will tell you whether there is a difference between your painful side and your good side, and we can also compare your results to normative data collected globally. Results will be used as a guide for returning to sports.




ASH Test results

Otherwise, physiotherapists will perform a comprehensive assessment of the shoulder, and treatment is a combination of hands on treatment and exercise based programming to address pain, capacity and function. For more specific advice for you, book online here.

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