Hey everybody, it's Doctor Jo and today I'm gonna show you some stretches and exercises
for an AC Joint sprain. Cause it's getting hot in here!
The AC doesn't actually stand
for air conditioning, it stands for acromioclavicular joint. That's where the clavicle comes into
the acromion in your shoulder. And a lot of times it gets sprained if you fall with an
outreached arm. That actually happened to me back in college and I had a grade 2 sprain,
so there's different levels of sprains. This is just to kind of get moving again so everything
doesn't get scarred up in there. So the first exercise is just gonna be your set of pendulum
exercises. You just want to hang the arm straight down. And the arm that you're working is gonna
be completely relaxed. So you're not really moving the arm, you're moving your body so
the arm moves. So it's not this movement necessarily, but it's this movement where your whole body
is going into a circle. So just kind of letting it relax. Swing around. Do 10 one way, then
reverse the circle and do 10 the other way. After you get those, then you can do a side
to side movement. So same thing, move your whole body. It's not necessarily this movement,
but it's a side to side movement this way. And then you're gonna do the front to back,
so going front to back this way. Again moving that whole body making sure that, you know
you can use your arm a little bit with the movement, but you really want this time it
actually being momentum just swinging your arm back and forth. Cause that really loosens
up that joint in the shoulder and that AC Joint right there. So the next exercises are
gonna be down on the ground. So the next stretch is gonna be an active assisted range of motion
for shoulder flexion. If you have a swiss ball, this works great. If you don't, you
can just do this on a counter top or a table top, but I like the ball cause it gives you
a little bit more motion. It gives you some stability work as well. Just place the hand
on top of the arm you're gonna work, with your thumb up. Use your other hand just to
kind of balance the ball a little bit cause if you haven't done it before, it's gonna
want to roll all over the place. And then just roll forward with your body coming up
onto your knees. So roll forward, stretch as far as you can, and then come back. You
can do a little pause, maybe a 2-3 second pause wherever you want to stop if it's starting
to get a little painful. Hold that stretch and come back. You don't want to push through
pain, just push to the pain. Start off with just about 10 of these and then work your
way up to 20 or 25. The next exercises are gonna be isometric exercises. And those are
the ones where you're making the movement, but you're not actually moving, so you're
gonna do external rotation and internal rotation of your shoulder. Keep your elbow as close
to your side as you can, you don't want it to be out here, you want it to be nice and
close to your side. Take the other hand to use it as a barrier that you're pushing in
to. So I'm gonna do this motion, but I'm gonna stop myself from doing it. So just pushing
inwards at a medium resistance. Don't push too hard to start off with because it might
be a little tender in there. And hold it 3-5 seconds and then relax. Do 5 of those and
then switch to the other side. Now this time I'm going out that way holding it there. Push
out 3-5 seconds and then relax. So having that nice bend in the elbow keeping the elbow
to your side. Then for the last one you're gonna actually get a resistive band. These
are great. They come in different colors, different resistance. Different weights of
the resistance. The yellow one is the lightest one in the theraband series, so I like to
start off with that one. You're gonna keep your elbows at your side again. You're thumbs
are gonna be up, and gently just pull out. Now try and keep your wrist in a neutral position.
A lot of times people like to do this motion as they pull out, but you don't want to end
up injuring your wrist. So try and keep those in a neutral position. Keep those elbows by
your side. If you feel like you're coming out a little bit, roll up a towel and squeeze
in. And then you know if the towel falls, then your elbows are coming off. So just come
out as far as you comfortably can, it doesn't have to be all the way out, and then slowly
come back in. Controlling that band. So don't go fast, make sure you;re getting that movement
going back in nice and controlled. So again, just start off with maybe 10 of these and
then if it becomes easy, do a couple sets and then work your way up to 20 - 25 repetitions.
So there you have it, those were your stretches and exercise for your AC Joint Sprain. If
you have any questions, leave them in the comments section. Don't forget to like us.
And remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.