To continue our blog series honoring National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, we’re taking a deep dive look into rotator cuff injuries.

While physical fitness and sports are of great benefit to our health, they can also come with risks, including injuries. Rotator cuff injuries are one of the most commonly seen sports injuries.

What is the Rotator Cuff?

The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons in the shoulder joint that keeps the upper arm bone, the humerus, in place in the shoulder socket. The rotator cuff connects the humerus to the shoulder blade and allows you to lift and rotate your arm.

When one or more of these tendons becomes detached from the humerus, it results in either a partial tear or a full-thickness tear.

Causes of Rotator Cuff Injuries

Traumatic Rotator Cuff Injury

A traumatic one-time event such as a fall onto an outstretched arm or improperly lifting heavy weight using a jerking motion can cause a rotator cuff strain or tear. Sometimes this tear can occur with additional shoulder injuries such as a broken collar bone or dislocated shoulder.

Collision sports are a prime source for traumatic rotator cuff injuries. Football, hockey, rugby, and lacrosse are all full-contact sports that can cause a rotator cuff injury.

This type of injury is typically seen in younger individuals and athletes.

Gradual Rotator Cuff Injury

Other rotator cuff injuries occur over time. There are multiple factors that can lead to a gradual rotator cuff injury.

Repetitive Stress
Rotator cuff tears can develop gradually when repetitive arm motions (especially overhead motions) are performed. This is typical in sports players, especially in tennis, football, swimming, and baseball. It is also a common injury for certain professions such as painters, carpenters, and auto mechanics.

In this situation, muscles and tendons are put under great stress, causing certain muscles to overpower others. This leads to a muscle imbalance, shoulder instability, and eventually, a tear.

Repetitive stress rotator cuff injuries are more common in older adults and athletes.

Age
With aging comes a decreased blood supply to your shoulder. Because of this, your shoulder can struggle to repair itself from everyday injuries and use. This causes extra stress and potential damage on the tendons and muscles, increasing their susceptibility to a tear.

Shoulder Impingement

Shoulder impingement occurs when a rotator cuff tendon is pinched between the narrow space of the acromion (a bony projection of your shoulder blade) and the rotator cuff.

This pinching leads to inflammation, which can cause tendinitis and in more severe cases, a tear. Pain is often worse when the arm is raised away from the body, as this is when the pinching occurs.

Although this can be seen in sports-related injuries, shoulder impingement can actually occur from traumatic injury, repetitive stress, or age. Because of this, people of all ages and lifestyles are vulnerable to it.

Typical Symptoms of a Rotator Cuff Injury

In some cases, such as an acute traumatic injury, you will likely know you are injured because you will experience sudden, intense pain.

This is especially typical for athletes who were injured while practicing or playing.

These injuries are usually attended to immediately to reduce pain and prevent lasting damage.

In the case of a gradual injury, the symptoms may be ignored for a while as they are not usually intense enough in the beginning to prompt seeking immediate treatment. You may notice pain in the shoulder or arm, especially when lifting your arm or at night, when sleeping on it. Over the counter pain medications may alleviate the pain at this point.

Eventually, the pain from a gradual injury is going to begin to increase in severity and pain relievers may stop working to alleviate the pain.

Other symptoms might also include:

• Grinding or popping sounds when moving your arm
• Weakness in the arm
• Inability to lift your arm

How to Avoid a Rotator Cuff Injury

Although athletes typically fall victim to a sports injury at some point or another, there are some basic practices you can apply to help prevent a rotator cuff injury, along with other sports-related injuries.

• Maintain a full-body exercise routine, year-round, to keep your muscles strong and better able to handle the intense activity mid-season.
• Always warm up and cool down before and after each practice session and game. Warming up increases your heart rate and helps blood flow to prepare your muscles and joints for a workout while cooling down decreases your heart rate back to a normal pace.
• Incorporate stretching into your warmup and cool down routines. This helps to increase flexibility and muscle recovery post-workout and can greatly reduce your chance of injury.
• Practice varying your workout off the field to prevent overuse of the same muscles.
• Listen to your body and give it rest when it needs it. If you’re feeling especially fatigued and/or pain, allow yourself time to recuperate to avoid further injury.

Treatment and Seeking Professional Help

Although many rotator cuff injuries can be treated without surgery, it is always recommended to be seen by a specialist to evaluate the damage. As with any injury, it can worsen over time and without treatment.

MidAmerica’s sports medicine specialists can assess your injury and recommend the best course of action based on your symptoms and needs.

Depending on the severity of your injury, our specialists may recommend:

• Rest
• Icing the injury
• Anti-inflammatory pain medication
• Physical therapy with one of our on-site certified physical therapists
• Steroid injections to treat inflammation

In the case of a severe rotator cuff injury, surgery is available at our Palos Hills and Mokena locations to repair the damage.

The goal of any treatment plan is to alleviate pain and restore function. Taking good care of your body to help prevent sport injuries is the first step; seeking immediate care when an injury does occur is the second step.

To maximize the potential for the best outcome, and return to the game as soon as possible, always contact a specialist right away after an injury.

If you’ve had a rotator cuff or other sports-related injury, or are experiencing shoulder pain, make an appointment with MidAmerica’s Sports Medicine Clinic or give us a call at (708) 237-7200.