If you have ever played a sport or just moved off the couch too fast, you have probably experienced a shoulder injury. While you probably shrugged it off without any care, a slight injury can be aggravated into a serious problem. Many professional athletes, including Leaf’s winger Gary Roberts, have suffered season or even career-ending shoulder injuries as a result of minor injuries that snowballed into a serious problem.
It can start as a minor tear in the shoulder tendon, as in Robert’s case, and become serious when you play three or four playoff rounds, where the shoulder is repeatedly smashed, crushed, and hyper-extended by blunt force.
The main joint in the shoulder is formed by the arm bone and the shoulder blade. The joint socket is very shallow to allow a wide range of motion in the arm, but this feature also makes the joint extremely fragile if moved in an improper manner. The rotator cuff is made up of four muscles that surround the arm bone.
This cuff keeps the shoulder steady as the arm moves. One of the muscles, the supraspinatus muscle, rests on top of the shoulder and its tendon travels under the bone on the outside of the shoulder. This tendon is the one most often injured because of its position between the bones. As the tendon becomes inflamed, it can become pinched between the two bones. This painful situation limits shoulder movement and can lead to a restricted range of motion.
An injury such as this one is most common in sports such as hockey, basketball and tennis, where the arm gets stretched beyond its limits.
Typically, the shoulder joint is the most easily dislocated joint in the body. In a typical case of a dislocated shoulder, a strong force pulls the shoulder outward or extreme rotation of the joint pops the ball of the humerus out of the shoulder socket. Dislocation commonly occurs when there is a backward pull on the arm that either catches the muscles unprepared to resist, or overwhelms the muscles. So when you lay the smack-down on that guy trying to steal your Nikes, a quick down and back motion to his shoulder should take him out for a while.
But seriously, a dislocation usually occurs in sports such as rugby and football where the shoulder is constantly receiving heavy blows.
Not only does the arm appear out of position when the shoulder dislocates, the dislocation also produces immense pain. Muscle spasms may increase the intensity of pain. Swelling, numbness, weakness, and bruising are likely to develop. Problems seen with a dislocated shoulder are tearing of the ligaments or tendons reinforcing the joint capsule and, less commonly, nerve damage. Though the symptoms seem minor, the effects of a shoulder injury can have long-term effects.
It is one thing to be aware of the risks when it comes to shoulder injuries, it is another to be able to prevent them before they happen. While it is virtually impossible to prevent an unexpected tackle, it is quite easy to exercise and maintain good body condition to help deal with injuries. You might not be able to win the war on injuries, but you can at least try and win the battle.
