hey everybody it's doctor Jo and Bumble Kali, and today I'm gonna show you my
top seven treatments for stiff shoulders. so let's get started.
so the first thing I like to do when I have
stiff shoulders, and I've had a shoulder surgery before, is pendulums. Pendulums are
really my favorite type of exercise or / stretch for any kind of tightness or
stiffness in the shoulders. so if you haven't had a surgery, if
you've just had some tightness you don't necessarily have to do this passively,
but if you've had a surgery you really want to do this where you're not
actively moving your arms. so there's a difference there. so if you have a
surgery make sure to check with your doctor, physical therapist before doing
any of the exercises, but all you're gonna do then was my left shoulder that
was tight and stiff, I'm just gonna hang it down and then I'm gonna use my body.
but I can actively move the shoulder a little bit just to make circles. so I'm
just gonna kind of make a circle like this going around. I probably do about
ten one way and then switch it and do ten the other way. if that feels good,
great. sometimes what makes it feel a little bit better is if you just take a
small weight and place it in your hand. this is just a soup can. usually they're
about 1 pound, and so then you just do the same thing. so just kind of let your
arm dangle down and then just make a little circle kind of use your whole
body. so you're not just swinging your arm, but you're using your whole body to
swing and then reverse it. you can also with the pendulums then just do like a
side to side. so again you're still using your whole body, and you're just letting
that arm hang down, and the weight just kind of helps open up that joint which
usually makes it feel really really good and it loosens it up. so if it's stiff in
there, this is a great way to kind of warm it up and get it loosened up and
get some of that stiffness out of there. and then you can also kind of put one
foot back and then just rock back and forth. so you're doing that front
back motion as well. so let's just do maybe like ten of these. if you don't
want to count you can do 30 seconds to a minute and you can do these a couple of
times a day. so then the next one is gonna be using a pulley. so I'm gonna set
that up real quick. so again I really like all these kind of things, pulley
systems are really great. you can buy a pulley. if you don't want to buy it, you
can get like a dollar jump rope from a Dollar General Store and just kind of
wrap it over something, but what the pulleys do, which some of the other
exercises don't, is allows you to completely relax your arms. so if my left
hand this one was the one that was stiff, I will pull down with my right to bring
it up. so see I'm just completely relaxed and then letting the pulley do all the
work because if I was actively lifting it you can see there would be slack in
the rope. so you're just using that other side to pull it up. and so a lot of times
if you can completely relax those muscles you can get a lot more motion in
there than trying to actively do it because then sometimes those muscles go
into guarding and then you have a lot more pain while you're doing it and then
you don't have as much motion. so I really like these pulley systems kind of
like the pendulums you can just do a time. so you can do 30 seconds up to a
minute, and you can do it a couple of different ways to do it. so you can go up
this way you can kind of turn your hand out to the side and get that abduction
motion which is sometimes a little bit tighter. so there's a couple of different
ways you can do it, but again I really really like the pulley system because
it's gonna allow you to do that motion passively. so then the next treatment is
an act of assistive range of motion with a stick. you can use PVC pipe if you have
it with some pretty tape on it. you can use a broomstick. if you happen to have a
cane you can use that as well. you just want something kind of solid
where you can assist the other side going up. so that's what that active
assisted range of motion means. so using the stick is really nice as well because
again then you're not doing the whole movement on its own, you're using the
other side to help again and that's really good because if you can relax
those muscles once again you're probably going to get
more motion because if there's something that stiffness that tightness in there
this is gonna really help. so you can do again the flexion,
abduction, external rotation, with the stick. so the first one if it's still my
left side I'm just kind of letting the left side go for a ride. so really this
is the motion that I'm doing with my right side, and this one's just kind of
hanging on. so it's getting that free ride with the other side. but since this
active assistant you can kind of you know help it up a little bit too but a
lot of the work is being done with this side. so you might only be able to get
right here and that's fine. so when you're doing this one with a stick, I
would say just do a little pause maybe two three-second pause as high as you
can get, and then cut them down and then maybe just start off with ten. you know
one to two sets a couple times a day. you can also do that abduction out to the
side. a lot of times I like the little hook here which would be something like
a cane or you can rig something up like this because then you can kind of just
hold it on the end here and then use this hand. so you're going to be pushing
up this way now and again the arm is just kind of going along for the ride.
most of the time I like the thumb being up, but if you just really want it to be
kind of completely relaxed that's okay to hold this way, but if your thumb is in
that upward position you're not going to impinge it quite as quite as much. so
just going up like this, again just going as high as you comfortably can. this one
might not go quite as high is that flexion, but it's a really good way to
kind of get that stretch without just actively trying to lift it up on your
own. when it's still hurting you can also do some external rotation. if that
shoulder is really stiff you want to keep that elbow by the side and the same
thing just kind of grab onto the end or on that hook, and then you're just kind
of pushing that motion out that way. make sure you keep your elbow by the side for
this one to get that that true external rotation. if I'm doing this, that's not
really the external rotation you really want to kind of keep that elbow by your
side and then do that push. so again you can do a little hold there at the end or
if you want to kind of do that continuous motion to get that stiffness
out of there, you can. so that really works out well. so then the next one is
just gonna be shoulder circles and so it's just like it sounds, you're gonna
take your shoulders and make circles with it. so you really want to try and
get big circles with your shoulders kind of coming all the way up going back and
all the way down. so really getting the movement in getting that stiffness out
of there. again maybe just in one way and then reverse it back the other way so
just getting those nice big circles in there. it doesn't seem like a lot, but if
you have stiff shoulders sometimes that one is a great way to really get it
loosened up. and you can do it anywhere, and it's pretty easy to even if you're
on your computer working you can do some of those without even stopping. so it's a
great thing. and then the next one is scapular squeezes or shoulder squeezes.
so those shoulder blades in the back you want to squeeze them inwards towards
your spine. so I always tell people imagine that somebody's got their hand
on your back right in the middle on that spine and you want to squeeze those
shoulder blades back. so you're almost pinching their hand but the key is not
to hunch up and squeeze, really keep it down and use those muscles. so I'm not
just using my elbows to get it back there, but I'm squeezing with those
muscles to get the movement. now you can use your elbows to for guidance. a lot of
times when you're doing it for the first time, you might want to use your elbows,
but make sure you're not just using your elbows that you're using those muscles
as well. so I'm going to turn so you can see where I'm really squeezing back and
then coming forward. so maybe a three to five second hold with this one, and then
relaxing. so again three to five seconds maybe five to ten times the couple times
throughout the day and that should really help it out. so the next one is
going to be a full stretch for your chest or your PEC area. and again all
these muscles here come and attach to the shoulder, so when you have that
stiffness in there a lot of times your shoulders roll forward and it's really
important to get those stretched out. you can stretch your your PEC muscles in a
couple different ways. you can stretch it in a corner. you can stretch it on a
doorway and kind of step through, but if you don't have those options a really
easy one is just to take your hands and kind of clasp
behind your back. I know sometimes this is hard for people, so maybe if you have
to hold on to something like a towel together to hold it you can do that as
well. but if you can clasp them together, you want to do that. and so what you're
gonna do is kind of push down and out a little bit and while you're pushing down
and out, you're gonna push your chest forwards. and then you're just going to
hold that stretch and you should really feel that stretch right and here through
the PEC area. so this one's going to be a full stretch, thirty seconds. and then you
want to do that stretch three times. so the last treatment is going to be table
slides or you can do them on a ball I'm going to just sit down and kind of show
you on a chair because that's easier to do in here, but it would basically be
simulating you kind of sliding on a table. so for the table slides, I'm just
demonstrating on the chair here because it's easier for me to do, but this is
something that you have a table, a countertop, a coffee table any kind of
flat surface will work. I like using a towel because it helps slide a little
bit better because again you want it to be a pretty smooth easy movement to get
that stiffness out of the shoulder. if you use the towel, make sure that it's
it's a sliding really well but also when you're doing the movement keep your
thumb and an upward position. and just what that does is it opens up that
shoulder so it's not in an impinged position. so if you can try and keep that shoulder up
when you do it. and then you're just gonna kind of slide forward. so again if
you're at a table or a countertop you might have a little bit more room but
still if my shoulder is tight I can even back up just a little bit and get some
stretch in there. and see I'm pretty getting a pretty good stretch through
that shoulder and just kind of leaning into it and then coming back. so it's
just like it sounds. it's a table slide. and you can again you know do 10 at a
time couple sets of 10 a couple times a day. and you can also do different angles
as well. so I'm going to turn a little bit I'm going to use my other side just
so you can see, but like if I wanted to do that abduction so then I'm still
sliding but now I'm coming at that angle so I'm getting that Abduction
motion. you can also come at an angle forwards where you're not completely
forward you're not completely out to the side but like a 45 degree angle and
that's called scaption. and so that's a really nice one to do as well. so you're
just sliding and the point of the table or the flat surface is again to kind of
make it an active assisted motion where you're not completely holding your arm
up in the air getting the stretch, but you have that table or that surface to
help kind of support it. so then you're not having to use all those muscles that
might cause extra stiffness in there. so there you have it, those were my top
seven treatments for stiff shoulders. if you like to help support my channel, make
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scribe by clicking down there. okay? and remember, bee safe, have fun, and I hope you
feel better soon. I know that was a silly joke.