Frozen Shoulders
Yoga and Exercise Treatment

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When deciding on exercise and/or yoga poses for your frozen shoulder, one way to think about what will work is to visualize what you would do if you had knots in a necklace chain. If you ever tried to undo knots in delicate chains, you know that going in and doing major tugging right off the bat doesn't work. It often just tightens the knot even more.

You usually have to make gentle small tugs to the various sides of the knots until some of them start to loosen up and break free. I've found it was the same way in trying to free up my frozen shoulder. Gentle, small tugging movements worked best at first to try to regain some initial movement. After that, I could do very gentle yoga poses, eventually working my way to to some of the more strenuous yoga positions and eventually, a regular yoga routine. These days I can even do aerobics videos, but it took many months of getting my body back in shape (after years neglecting my body and unwitting abuse at my own PC) to get to this point.

The exercises below are listed in chronological order of what helped me in getting my shoulder back to a normal range of motion. Initially I would do these exercises multiple times a day, ideally after doing trigger point therapy, described in the previous section, frozen shoulder treatment tips - part II.

1. Shoulder Circles - I started out with very small circles just to free up my shoulders a little bit. At first I could only make very small circles without pain because my shoulder had literally "frozen" into place through years of programming work and my own ignorance about the value of movement to keep joints lubricated and flowing freely. I would do a few minutes on each side several times a day following trigger point therapy.

2. Arm Circles - Again, these were less painful when done lying on one side. It also put less tension on my shoulder to bend my arm rather than keeping it out straight. So I would lie on the floor or my bed on one side and bend my upper arm so that my hand would be placed on my shoulder. Then I would make little circle movements in the air with my elbow. I started out with very small circles and then made then bigger and bigger circles as my shoulder freed up. I would also make other shapes in the air - figure eights, letters of the alphabet, etc. - anything to try to get my shoulder muscles freed up and moving again into their full range of motion.

For me the arm circle exercise is one of my all time favorites in helping my entire body get back to normal after years of suffering from fibromyalgia and a myriad of chronic pain conditions. Besides helping my shoulder , the arm circle exercise was also good was also good for my neck pain, TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder), and scoliosis.

Eventually I could do arm circles standing up and with my arms out straight, but it took awhile to get to this point.

For more exercises to free shoulder and other joints, I highly recommend the book Structural Yoga Therapy. It has chapters called, "What is Joint Freedom?" and "The Joint Freeing Series". The joint freeing series has detailed pictures and a chart of daily yoga poses to do to keep all of your your joints, including your shoulders, moving freely.

As I mentioned in the previous pages, your frozen shoulder may be the place where you notice your pain the most, but this doesn't mean your shoulder is the source of your pain. It may be the result of tight muscles or imbalances elsewhere in your body. Books, web sites and physical therapists that advice only shoulder exercises for shoulder pain or dysfunction may be seeking simple solutions to complex, whole body muscular problems.

In my case, my son's case, and I suspect many others, people don't just have a frozen shoulder in isolation without any other orthopedic problems. The Structural Yoga Therapy book is good because in addition to exercises to free up shoulders and other joints, it addresses topics such as high shoulders, scoliosis, pronated ankles, kyphosis (hunchback), lordosis (swayback) and many more. Western medicine often treat human bodies like car parts, where you can work on one defective part without influencing the other. I think we are built more like stacked pieces of wood in a Jenga game, where a failure anywhere in the stack will cause imbalances elsewhere in the structure.

3. One Leg Up, One Leg Out - While it is unconventional to do leg stretches for frozen shoulders, in my case this is what helped. My tight leg muscles were actually a root cause of my pain, so freeing up my leg muscles helped reduce the pull on my shoulder.

For this exercise, I lay down on my back in front of a doorway. I put one leg up the wall and one leg out flat, arms resting at my side. I found this pose in the book, Back Care Basics, on page 100. For my review of this book, see my section on yoga for back pain. ) According to the the author, this pose is good for stretching the hamstrings of one leg and the hip flexors of the other. I know after I do this pose for a few minutes on each leg my legs actually feel looser and more relaxed. This pose is also supposed to be good for scoliosis, which I suspect based on my family's history may be common in people with frozen shoulders.

I've also noticed that some people with frozen shoulders also tend to have swollen ankles. There are actually logical reasons for these conditions to occur together. See my swollen ankles pages for more on this topic.

Recommended Books:

Structural Yoga Therapy: Adapting to the Individual by Mukunda Stiles

Related Pages in My Site -

Fibromyalgia Diet - the right diet can help

Fibromyalgia Treatment

Treatment for Neck Pains

Diet and Exercise Treatments for TMJ

Winged Scapula

Scoliosis Exercises

Scoliosis Exercises - Part II

Popping Jaws and Creaky Knees

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