Terrence Chee’s Ramblings:
Frozen Shoulder
Frozen Shoulder (and everything directly and indirectly related to it) has been a nuisance to too many individuals for far too long. Of late, I’m beginning to see more cases among the locals here in Penang. Probably the same everywhere else as well, especially if the recent coronavirus pandemic did not contribute to a more active lifestyle. For starters, I have to say it affects women more, especially older women and this can give us a clue to what the cause or contributing factor may be. Let’s look into the aspects involved leading up to the occurrence of frozen shoulder and how we prevent it in the first place. Only then we’ll look at how to solve this issue, because how we solve has a very close relation to how we prevent. So let’s look at this condition and I’ll try explaining it in the most light hearted way possible. So what happened? Why did you suddenly feel pain in your shoulder one day? Did an injury happen? Or maybe it’s not pain. Maybe just some discomfort, sometimes you can explain where it came from and what caused it. Sometimes not. Or it could only be some restrictions in movement or difficulty in achieving that full range of movement you used to achieve 3 years ago. Or 3 weeks ago. And by the way, that issue with the shoulder, it could happen to any other joint in the body. Not just the shoulder. So applying these steps will benefit any joint in the body. Alright, so let’s go through at least the most common reasons why it happens.
Lack of exercise and movement
Okay, let us elaborate further. Lack of exercise and insufficient movement within that particular joint or/and muscle/muscles causing it to be compromised in terms of it’s health and therefore capabilities. A joint and it’s surrounding muscles would be more susceptible to injuries, weakness, pain, discomfort and tightness if we do not maintain it’s health regularly. So knowing what to do, and how to care for our body the right way is very important and an issue we must not take lightly. Due to our current and past health conditions, the steps we take can be different.
Stress
So we do not exercise enough and this has caused our muscles to weakened. But maybe no actual damage yet. Then what came next? What if one day your friends invited you for a run which you have not done in a long time? Or perhaps a hike? Or maybe as you were waiting at a traffic light, you wanted to reach out to a book at the backseat or maybe it was quite a heavy pouch. Or maybe your grocery bag was unexpectedly too heavy and your car was parked quite a distant away. It is not possible to always have that perfect posture and bending, kneeling, squatting even minor injuries are a part of everyday life. So what are exercises for? To help you cope with something unexpected? That unexpected sporting activity, exercise, posture, work or position? YES.
Injuries
Sometimes injuries do happen no matter how well we try to live a healthy and active lifestyle. Something unpredictable can happen, causing issues which are unexpected. But even with this predicament, our recovery rate still depends on our lifestyle. So it is important that we exercise. Yes, injuries can be a start to frozen shoulder and many muscle and bone problems.
So these are the main reasons how our posture, health and body structure is compromised and sometimes with the demands that life suddenly presents to us, we are suddenly caught unprepared.