Do you find your shoulders aching at the end of the day or when having to reach for items?
Performance For Life NEWSLETTER
Do you find your shoulders aching at the end of the day or when having to reach for items? Why your shoulders hurt Your shoulders have to move through an incredible 180 degrees of motion, while still maintaining stability and strength. The shoulder joint acts like a ball in a very shallow socket that is part of the shoulder blade. Some of the most important muscles in the rotator cuff are actually the smallest. The rotator cuff is made up of 4 muscles that are small, but vital to keeping the ball stable in the socket. When these muscles are weak or injured, the ball can jam up into the socket of the shoulder blade, causing inflammation and pain. (continued inside )
3 WAYS TO BEAT ACHY SHOULDERS
Performance For Life NEWSLETTER “Understand The Anatomy Of Your Shoulder To Gain Pain Relief! ” 3 WAYS TO BEAT ACHY SHOULDERS
Try these simple actions to improve the health of your shoulders and alleviate that nagging ache or sharp pain for good. 1. Sit up tall! – The number one reason for repetitive injury and pain in the shoulders is poor posture. When the ball moves forward in the socket, the rotator cuff becomes vulnerable to injury! There is less space for the muscles which can then get “pinched.” The muscles are also overstretched, making them weaker. 2. Strengthen your rotator cuff muscles – By keeping your rotator cuff muscles strong, you help guide your shoulder joints, lessening the chance for injury and inflammation to occur. A simple exercise to perform is while sitting or standing, keep elbows at your side bent to 90 degrees and thumbs up. Push your hands out like opening a newspaper. Repeat 10 times. This will help you avoid rotator cuff injuries. 3. Improve your scapula stability – The shoulder blade makes up an important part of your shoulder complex. It has many different muscles attached to it, pulling at just the right time for proper shoulder movement. Improve the shoulder blade muscles by frequently firing them. In a sitting or standing position, drop your shoulders slowly down and back. This wakes up those important muscles which help guide the shoulder blade when using your arm. Perform 10-15 repetitions holding the contraction for 5 seconds, frequently throughout the day. By working on these 3 simple actions, you can dramatically improve the performance and feel of your shoulders. If your shoulders feel weak, achy, or painful give us a call today. We will definitely get your shoulders feeling limber, stronger and allow you to get back to doing life’s everyday activities pain free.
Are you in Pain? Call Today And Start Feeling Better Fast!
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GIVE YOUR SHOULDERS A BREAK THIS GOLF SEASON
Many people look upon golf as a sport of leisure and not necessarily an athletic activity. To the contrary, the golf swing is a very athletic movement, requiring a great deal of mobility, stability and coordination to be executed well….and pain free. The human body has a tendency to seek the path of least resistance in order to survive the environment it is placed in. In the golf swing, limited range of movement around the hips, upper & low back and even the neck, can lead to added stress on the shoulder. The shoulder is the 3rd most frequently injured body area, behind the back (#1) and wrist (#2).This makes the shoulder a very vulnerable area for injury, not only in golfers, but in other overhead activities such as throwing a ball, swinging a racket or bat and even reaching overhead when gardening. It is important to recognize when we have physical limitations that put our shoulders at risk for an injury. When it comes to determining the risk of shoulder injuries specifically in golfers, there are 4 things to consider: 1. Posture – poor posture in your golf stance places your entire spine in a less than optimal position for executing the golf swing. It makes it much more difficult to rotate through the torso or trunk. You are much more likely to increase the movement of the shoulder, thereby placing more stress on the muscles & tendons that support the shoulder. The most commonly affected structure being the tendons of the rotator cuff. 2. Trunk Rotation – the inability to rotate through the trunk will cause the golfer to have a shortened backswing. To compensate, they will strain at the shoulder in an effort to increase the length of the backswing. By increasing trunk rotation through mobilization of the thoracic spine, it allows you to execute a more fluid and effective swing and ultimately reducing the strain placed on the shoulder. 3. Mobility at the gleno-humeral (shoulder) joint – limited ability to rotate the upper arm can affect both the backswing and the follow through during the golf swing. This may result in additional stress to the muscles and tendons of the shoulder, once again, the rotator cuff taking on the added load in most cases. Accommodations within the swing to adjust for these limitations may in turn, place added stress on the low back and hips. 4. Stability at the shoulder blade – the 4 muscles of the rotator cuff all attach to the shoulder blade. Their job is to stabilize the end of the upper arm in the shoulder joint. An unstable shoulder blade makes it harder for the rotator cuff to stay strong and do its job. With the repetitive nature of golf, the end result is a fatigued and overworked cuff that is susceptible to tendonitis. Left unchecked, this could result in that rotator cuff failing over time and suffering a tear.
This coupon good for
FREE SHOULDER PAIN SCREEN
We have set aside 20 slots for FREE SHOULDER SCREENS during the month of April. Call your local Achieve Therapy clinic to schedule your FREE SHOULDER SCREEN today! •Immediate relief from shoulder pain. •Expert, hands on treatment for muscles and joints causing shoulder pain. •Faster recovery period. •Learn how to avoid future shoulder pain. CALL YOUR LOCAL CLINIC TODAY!
The key to reducing the risk of you having shoulder pain, or an injury, this golf season is recognizing where your deficiencies may lay. A musculoskeletal screen specific to the golf posture allows us to recognize those areas and to develop an exercise plan to help
you avoid shoulder issues. The Titleist Performance Institute has put together a golf specific screen and Achieve Therapy and TPI Certified Athletic Trainer Jeff Barta, is trained to perform those screens. If you would like to learn more about the TPI Golf Screen and how it can benefit you, or if you already know you would benefit from a Golf Screen, contact Jeff at 701-757-1322 or via email at jbarta@achieve-therapy. com. You can also visit www.mytpi.com to learn more and to receive helpful tips for improving your golf game.
Congress Passes New Medicare Laws
Our politicians managed to prevent an extended government shutdown. Yeah!…? Of course, that also means that they passed some new laws that affect healthcare, especially Medicare. If you are on Medicare or know someone on Medicare keep reading. If not, pass this on to someone who looks like they might be on Medicare. You’ll know who they are by their years of wisdom and experience! For 20 years Congress passed temporary fixes to Medicare regarding Physical therapy. (17 times if you’re counting.) They have finally eliminated a “hard cap” on physical therapy that limited the total dollars Medicare would spend for PT every year. So now we have no limitations on how much care a Medicare patient can receive! Not so fast…Let’s take a look at exactly what really passed into law. As it now stands, there is no maximum dollar amount Medicare will pay per year. However, any treatment beyond $2010 requires proof of medical necessity. That’s the easy part. What they did next was lower the threshold to $3000 (from $3700) when a “Targeted Medical Review” may be triggered.
Once we hit $3000, Medicare can randomly trigger a review to determine if your care still qualifies as medically necessary. Of course, they contract these reviews out to a third party and the requests have a history of being more interested in saving money than helping the patient. So, What Does This Really Mean? Keep Reading… We may not have a hard cap, but going beyond $3000 per year requires more work and more risk of potential denials. Since this used to be $3700, it’s hard to call this a victory for the average Medicare patient. Who it does benefit are those individuals with significant health concerns who really do need physical therapy above and beyond the “average” Medicare patient. Oh…did I mention how this affects Medicare and how they bill your secondary insurance, if you have one? Typically, Medicare has billed secondary insurances under a “coordination of benefits” set of rules. With no hard cap, we really have no idea what changes will occur with secondary insurance benefits. Wow. That was a lot of information! Call your local clinic today if you have any questions!
Confused? You’re not alone. Here is my take on this change.
The first $2010 dollars is covered with no extra requirements. The next $990 dollars requires us to add a special code to our billing that tells Medicare your treatment is still medically necessary.
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