Shoulder Pain Recovery in Minneapolis-St. Paul

When someone comes to Evo Performance Rehab with shoulder pain or an injury to the shoulder, an MRI can sometimes tell exactly what's wrong. What's going on? It's been pre-diagnosed. They have a slight tear in one of their rotator cuff tendons, or they have a long-term spasm, or they have a frozen shoulder. Often, they understand their symptoms. They could be officially diagnosed or not.

So regardless of either case, what we would do at Evo Performance Rehab is look at movement and watch for compensation, meaning they're moving in a way outside of how the body is ideally designed to move. They use some muscles too much to make the movement, which shuts down other muscles and keeps them from moving.

Partially Torn Supraspinatus Tendon

So let's say someone comes in with a partially torn supraspinatus tendon. And they have done some physical therapy already, and it's been less than successful. Or they have gotten some massages already, and it's been temporary relief. Or they've gotten chiropractic adjustments already, and it's been temporary relief.

During the evaluation and treatment, we would come in to find out not only what was wrong but also where the damage was. But what is inhibited, meaning what is shut down, is what's causing the damaged tissues to overwork. So we might find the primary dysfunction is actually in one of the other rotator cuff muscles, or even in the deltoid muscles on the opposite side.

Rotator Cuff Strain

Let's say we find the anterior deltoid and triceps in a client with a rotator cuff strain. It would make sense that if the body is keeping that deltoid muscle and that tricep muscle partially shut down, that the rotator cuff muscle would have to work far too hard and do a job it wasn't designed to do, therefore taking some damage. So our job then becomes enhancing the ability for the right muscles to start doing their jobs again, which finally allows that person to make a breakthrough and start healing and moving without pain.

Frozen Shoulder

I had a man come in with the early stages of what's called "frozen shoulder" or "adhesive capsulitis." This man was unable to reach to the side any higher than laterally, parallel with the ground, and when we did, and when he would reach, he would feel significant pain in the top of his shoulder joint.

When we did our neurological search, we found that instead of the pain area yielding our inhibition zones or neurological disconnects, we found that one of his rotator cuff muscles, the teres minor, and one of the heads of his bicep were inhibited.

So, without having to apply any direct stimulation to his shoulder joint, we were able to improve communication between the teres major and minor. And within the first session—actually,  within the first one to two minutes of treatment within the first session—he had full range of motion reaching overhead.