Your shoulder is one of the most versatile joints in your body. It has nearly 360 degrees of rotation and plays a role in sports such as swimming and baseball pitching. With that large range of motion comes the opportunity for injury. That is why it is important to take a multifaceted approach to shoulder support. You should start with a training program that focuses on flexibility, stability, strength and sport-specific injury prevention. If it's necessary, seek out the best support brace you can find if an injury does occur.
Flexibility
Flexibility is an important part of your shoulder training regimen. If you are lacking any range of motion, your shoulder will not move in the proper pattern and you will be open to injury. According to certified strength and conditioning specialist Keith Cronin, maintaining flexibility in your shoulder helps to maintain proper balance within your joint and avoid injury. Maintaining flexibility in your shoulder will also help to keep the muscles, tendons and ligaments in the joint pliable and less likely to be stressed to the point of injury.
Stability
Your shoulder should be able to support your body weight without pain in a variety of movement patterns. Simple exercises such as shoulder elevation or shrugging, lowering, forward movement and pulling back, with little to no external resistance, will help tone the small muscles surrounding your shoulder joint. These basic movements will help to maintain a smooth, pain-free and healthy movement pattern. Static stability is also necessary to remain injury-free. Your shoulder should be able to support your body in one position for an extended period of time to remain healthy. Simple bridging and body planks are excellent for shoulder static stability work.
Strength
Your shoulder muscles come in two layers. The innermost layer includes tiny stabilizing muscles such as the rotator cuff complex; the outermost layer includes a larger group of muscles that function to move objects, such as a baseball or an opposing player. It is important to strengthen the outermost layer of muscles in several, opposing planes of movement. For example, if you perform a vertical pulling exercise such as a pull-up, you must also perform a vertical pushing exercise, such as a military press. Push-pull workouts not only maintain a healthy balance in your shoulder joint, but allow you to improve strength in multiple sections of the joint in a time-efficient manner.
Sport Specific
Sports that involve bringing your arm above your head place excessive stress on your shoulder joint. You must practice strengthening exercises that involve competition-like movements to avoid painful injuries. Internal and external rotation both in the horizontal and vertical planes are excellent exercises for injury prevention, as stated by Baseball Training Secrets. Forward, lateral and reverse shoulder raises are also great for injury prevention. Whenever you bring your arm above your head and force it back down in a powerful motion, your shoulder moves through all of these planes of motion in combination. Therefore, it is vital that you take the time to perform sport-specific exercises.
Bracing
Despite the steps you may have taken to avoid them, shoulder injuries are common. If you are experiencing pain in your shoulder, you should first see a doctor to be sure that you are not seriously injured. Once you have determined that you are clear to participate in sports, you may want to invest in a shoulder brace. If you have a soft tissue injury, as is most common, a thermal wrap is not a bad choice. A thermal wrap will help to keep your muscles warm and minimize pain. Another option is a postural control brace, which gently pulls the shoulder into proper posture, alleviating pain while allowing you to continue to participate in sports.
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