By Jordan Ruder

Contributor

With summer fast approaching, many of us are jumping back into one or more of our favourite fair weather activities, be it golfing with an orchard view, volleyball on the sandy beach, swimming in the crystal clear Okanagan lakes, playing tennis with friends or a little extra gardening for all of you green thumbs.

Whatever the summer activity of choice, we all hope this warm weather finds us ready to tackle the 'fun in the sun' at full steam without having to worry about those pesky aches and pains that often set in over the winter.

One aspect that many summer activities have in common is that you will undoubtedly require a pair of healthy shoulders to fully enjoy them. As a practising physiotherapist treating patients with various conditions and injuries for almost a decade, I must say that shoulder pathology and dysfunction are some of the most common conditions walking in and out of our clinics on a daily basis.

When you dissect this shoulder issue further, there are a few key things that make the shoulder one of the most biomechanically  impressive but also one of the most vulnerable regions to injury in our body.

First , the shoulder is the most mobile joint in the human body. The 'ball and socket' anatomy of the shoulder allow for movement that we see in no other body region. Whether it be flexing the shoulder 180 degrees overhead to smash a beach volleyball or fully externally rotating your shoulder during your golf swing follow-through, the shoulder girdle demonstrates phenomenal flexibility.

This fantastic mobility in the shoulder girdle however comes with a price. In order for this flexibility to be functional when teeing off with your driver on 18 or lifting heavy pot of flowers up on your deck, the shoulder requires a significant amount of dynamic stability. This dynamic stability is accomplished by work of a few important muscles that surround the very flexible shoulder joint...most notably, the rotator cuff as well as other scapular stabilizing muscles.

For our shoulders to remain healthy and function at the high levels required for our summer fun, this balance between flexibility and stability must be maintained.

Some common conditions and injuries that we as physiotherapists assess and treat where shoulder flexibility and stability become compromised include; Shoulder Impingement, tendinitis/tendinopathy, bursitis, rotator cuff tears, shoulder dslocations/separations, frozen shoulder, and Scapulothoracic Dysfunction.

If your summer involves getting or staying active and you want your shoulders to be ready for the action, book a consultation and some treatment with your physiotherapist to ensure your shoulders are ready to shoulder the load!

Jordan Ruder is a Registered Physiotherapist and Associate at the Downtown location of Sun City Physiotherapy. He is a member of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association and is also a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Manipulative Physical Therapists (FCAMPT).

250-861-805

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