Medi-Dyne Pain Solution and Treatment for Heel, Back, and Shins

How Do Tight Shoulders Occur?

The shoulder is the most versatile joint in the body. There is no other joint that can lift up and down, forward and backward, rotate left and right, or move in a throwing motion. But, like any complex machine with a lot of moving parts, there’s a lot that can go wrong.

Many shoulder injuries are caused by activities that involve excessive, repetitive, overhead motion. Repetitive motion injuries may be every day activities such as yard work or housework or athletic activities (hunching over a computer, golf, swimming, tennis, and weightlifting). These common activities can shorten some muscles. These shortened muscles, combined with the natural loss of muscle elasticity that occurs with aging, can set you up so any quick or awkward motion could stretch your muscles beyond their limit, resulting in a strain or a tear.

While overuse or other injury can play impact shoulder flexibility, tight shoulder muscles can also stem from a lack of activity, the result of which causes the muscles in your shoulders to lack proper range of motion and strength. This compensation can cause some discomfort, modified posture, and even pain but this imbalanced relationship could have longer lasting consequences. Modified muscle movement during any activity causes a constant tug-of-war between the muscles which can have a long-term effect on posture and lead to significant muscle, joint, tendon and ligament injuries.

Preventing Pain and Maintaining Flexibility

Flexible muscles make everyday activities easier on your body and help decrease your risk of certain injuries. Studies have also shown that stretching may have further reaching benefits including improving your circulation and increasing blood flow to your muscles. Greater flexibility has even been linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. A 2009 study in the "American Journal of Physiology" indicated that people age 40 and older who performed well on a sit-and-reach test (a seated forward bend that measures flexibility) had less stiffness in their arterial walls, an indicator of the risk for stroke and heart attack.

Prevention options include:

• 1) Focus On Flexibility And Strength

  If your goal is to prevent injury, stretching should be done daily. Shoulder stretching is fairly simple and can be done anywhere but learning and following proper technique is the key.

• 2) Warm Up And Cool Down

  Going in cold is uncomfortable under any circumstances, but starting an exercise or athletic activity without stretching is a risk for injury you just don’t have to take. Be sure to warm up your shoulder muscles properly before and stretch afterwards.

Medically Proven Solutions

CoreStretch®

Originally developed for use by physical therapists for clinical use.

The CoreStretch was developed to provide the deepest, most effective way to stretch your lower back, hamstrings, and posterior chain while restoring muscle flexibility and interaction, thereby, increasing range of motion, reducing pain, preventing further injury, and speeding up recovery. Unlike conventional stretching methods that force the back to curve, the unique design of the CoreStretch decompresses the back, enabling a deeper, more effective stretch of the posterior muscle chain supporting your back, spine, and legs. The CoreStretch provides a stretch that both allows the tissues to relax and elongate developing the major muscle groups of the core.

StretchRite®

The patented StretchRite gives you a safer, more effective way to improve flexibility and get total body relief for sore, tight muscles. Stretch-Rite®'s patented system features a non-elastic strap for stretching and conditioning every major muscle group — making it easy to perform each stretch properly and effectively and features six ergonomically-shaped handgrips that offer a comfortable non-cinching hold and make it simple to adjust tension during the stretch.