With shoulder arthritis you have to be double as careful, because of two reasons:
The shoulder joint is in general a more complex than other joints
With arthritis you should not overload it. Otherwise exercises will be contraproductive
Signs of arthritis in the shoulder
Arthritis in the shoulder has one or more of the following signs:
Increased temperature around the shoulders, red colored, swelling and increased muscle activity
Starting stiffness: pain in the joints especially when you start moving
Stiff feeling for at least 1,5 hours after you woke up (morning stiffness)
Range of motion limitation
Decreased strength
Lack of stability in the joint.
Red flag arthritis
When you come to my practice for the first time to have a consult for shoulder arthritis, I will ask you about the following the items. Sometimes it is necessary to see a specialist of a different field first.
Unexplainable warm and swollen shoulder
Unexplainable pain in the shoulder
Pain in rest and swelling without any prior injury
If you have a prothesis, do you have:
Fever
Infection
Unexplainable heavy pain in the shoulder
Other relevant medical information to bare in mind:
Radiological deformities of the joints
Comorbidities
Medication
Prognosis
Working with arthritis
Arthritis can make your work more difficult. Also sports and hobbies could be harder to keep doing. Evenals sport en vrijetijdsbestedingen zullen moeilijker worden.
At work and at home you could consider the following changes to make life with arthritis more easy:
Tasks: see if you can alternate with tasks so your work gets lets repetitive or less heavy
Facilities: reorganize your workspot. For example set your chair at right hight in relatio to your desk.
Family, friends and colleagues: talk with them about arthritis and tell them that it is important to stay physically active. Perhaps they could motivate you with adopting an active lifestyle.
Health care: the first twelve physical therapy appointments are covered by every Dutch health care package (basisverzekering).
Ilness believes: the most important factor is how do live with arthritis? You could take control over arthritis instead that arthritis is taking control over you. An active coping style is required to get control over arthritis
What kind of exercises can I do against arthritis?
Arthritis is unfortunatly a condition which won't go away. However, by training the following types of exercise you could limit the symptoms of arthritis:
Strength: strong muscles could support joints better. More support of the joints leads to less pain in the joints.
Endurance: if you have artritis it is a challenge to work on your endusance, because you need to be physically active over a longer period of time in order to increase your endurance. You could start working on your endurance by doing walking exercises.
Hydrotherapy is also nice to work on your shoulder arthritis with not too much pain.
Problemorientated exercises: it is nice to work on your activities you would like to do instead of standard exercises. For example if you like to learn the front crawl, we could train on that specific type of exercise
Balance: If you have artritis in your shoulder, you could have less balance in your shoulder. Mick could give you balance exercises to work on this.
Strength endurance exercises against arthritis
Strength endusance is a type of exercise where there is less emphasis on gaining muscle weight (hypertrophy) but more on lasting an activity for a longer period of time.
The parameter for strength endurance exercises are:
20-40 repetitions
3-5 series
90 seconden rust
You need to be fully exhaustief when you are between the 20 and 40 repetitions. When you do not reach 20, you have to make the exercise less heavy. When you reach over 40 repetitions easily, you have to make the exercise harder.
Strength endurance exercises have as a positive effect that it will stimulate growth of your bone mass.
When you have arthritis the mass of your bones are becoming less. Your bones will be more fragile. Therefore it is important to give a stimulus to the bones to become more dense.
When you are making repetitions between 20 and 40 there is a lot of stimuli send from the joints to the brain to make more bone mass.
The pressure on the joint with every repetition will activate the hormonal system to create more bone mass.
Use it or lose it. When you use your joints; your body will make an attempt to make the joints stronger. When are not physically active; your body will say ‘there is no need to increase the quality of bones because you don’t use your joints anyway.
Here are three typical strength endurance exercises you can do against shoulder arthritis:
Push up against the wall with locked arms with particularly using your serratus and your rhomboid musclesonly flexing your serratus muscle.
V-arm raise
Y-raise
These are typical strength endurance exercises, because 20 repetitions would be in most cases possible. When you do not reach 20 repetitions, you can make the exercise lighter by making smaller working trajectory/range of motion.
Strength exercises against arthritis
Strength exercises make your muscles stronger (hypertrophy). Stronger muscles are better in supporting the joints. More support of the joints means less pressure on your joints and less pressure on your joints means less pain.
Here are three typical strength exercises against shoulder arthritis you can do:
Push ups
Biceps curl
Pectoral fly
These exercises are typical strength exercises, because most people are pretty exhausted after 10 repetitions.
The parameters of strength exercises are:
8-12 repetitions
3 series
90 seconds rest between the series
For hypertrophy it is important that you end between 8 and 12 repetitions.
For example the perfect work out: you do 10 push ups and you are totally exhausted and you take 90 seconds a break. You repeat this serie 2 more times.
My advice is not to start with strength exercises when you have arthritis. With arthritis it is important to not overload your joints, because an overload could lead to less bone mass. Besides you have to be more carefully with the shoulder joint, because this is a more complicated joint than other joints.
Shoulder exercises with power band
Low row:
Attach the powerband to a fixed object. Hold on to the power band on both ends.
Pull the powerband towards you by bending your elbows. Press your chest forwards and pull the shoulderblades towards.
Your elbows shouldn’t go pass your back.
8 repetitions
3 series
1 minute rest between the series
Retraction Shoulderblades:
Attach the powerband to a solid object. Hold on to both ends of the powerband. Stand up straight and flex your abs lightly. Pull with stretched arms the powerband passed your sides of your trunk. When you reached the end of your range of motion try to squeeze your shoulderblades towards eachother. Maintain this end position two seconds. Move back gradually to your starting position. Knijp op het einde van de beweging de schouderbladen naar elkaar toe.
8 repetitions
3 series
1 minute rest between the series
T-raises:
Hold the powerband on shoulder hight in front of you with stretched out arms. Bring both ends of the powerband away from eachother so there is maximal strain on the powerband. In the end position push your shoulder blades towards each other. Maintain this end position three seconds
8 repetitions
3 series
1 minute rest between the series
Y-raises
Grab the powerband and keep it in front of you with streched arms with some strain on it. Bring the powerband as far as possible above your head while keeping the strain on the powerband. Maintain the end position for three seconds. Your body has now a Y-shape.
Finally bring the powerband to your starting position while keeping the powerband stretched.
8 repetitions
3 series
1 minute rest between the series
Pallofpress:
Attach the powerband to a solid object like a door knob. Hold with one hand the ends of the powerband. You stand parallel in line with the powerband. Position your ellbow in 90º in your side and keep your elbow all the time there. Hold the powerband in your hand with your thumb up. Take a step aside so there is strain on the powerband. Keep the arm in the same position. You feel that you have flex your arm muscles to maintain the same arm position. Keep this position two seconds. Take a side step back.
8 repetitions
3 series
1 minute rest between the series
Shoulder stretches
Arthritis results in a lack of range motion in the joints. A lack of range of motion causes tight and short muscles. With the following stretch exercises you can fight the tight muscles.
Leaning forward in a door opening
Hold on to both sides of the door opening. Lean forward and you can also press forward your chest. You can hold on to the door opening on different hights. This helps you stretching different muscles and different parts of the muscles.
Maintain the stretch as long as possible bus sure more than 30 seconds
Make as many as repetitions as possible. I understand that you don't have unlimited time, so 6 times would be a nice number
Rest between the stretching is merely shaking of the strain.
Lay on your back and leave your arms hanging
When you lay on your back you let your arms drop the sides. This gives stretch in your arm muscles.
Maintain the stretch as long as possible bus sure more than 30 seconds
Make as many as repetitions as possible. I understand that you don't have unlimited time, so 6 times would be a nice number
Rest between the stretching is merely shaking of the strain.
Shoulder stretch with gym pole
Sit on a chair place the pole up against your shoe so it won't slip away. Hold the stick with one hand. Lean forward so you feel stretch in your shoulder joint.
You can alternate with your hold on to the stick. A different placement of the hand gives you different stretches in different muscles and muscle parts.
You can do both shoulders. It is advised to first do one shoulder multiple times before switching to the other shoulder. Sticking to one shoulder gives you more results of increasing the mobility.
Maintain the stretch as long as possible bus sure more than 30 seconds
Make as many as repetitions as possible. I understand that you don't have unlimited time, so 6 times would be a nice number
Rest between the stretching is merely shaking of the strain.
Mobilising
A physiotherapist could increase your range of motion in the shoulder by bringing your shoulder joints in the end position and holding it there for 5 times 6 seconds.
It is basically passively stretching, because you do not have to anything, but the physiotherapist will do the stretching for you. The only difference between stretching and mobilizing is that mobilizing is focused on the joint and stretching is focussed on the muscles.
Massage
Nothing beats a good old massage. All the new insights or trends like dry needling aside, I really believe that massage is the best option.
Massage relaxes the muscles around the shoulder joint. This gives on short term pain relieve and an increase of flexibility in the shoulder, because your muscles are less tight. If you use the short time frame by starting to train your shoulder joint you could also work on long term improvements of the shoulder.
After mobilizing or a work out you shoulder could also be painful when you have arthritis. A massage could help decreasing this hangover from training or mobilizing.
Hydrotherapy for shoulder arthritis
In the water there is no gravity. This feeling of being weightless is a true relieve for people with arthritis. Also some exercises are only in the water possible. We can give great exercises where we use the resistance of water.
Het gevoel van gewichtsloosheid in het water kan een verademing zijn. De verminderde druk op de gewrichten maakt oefeningen die 'op land' niet mogelijk zijn. Ook is hydrotherapie een handig instapniveau na een operatie. Daarnaast heeft het warme water een heilzaam effect.
Free Shoulder Arthritis Training Schedule
Send me an e-mail to get a free shoulder arthritis training schedule. No registration, hidden costs or other strains attached: mickvaneeuwijk@gmail.com