Injections, drugs, elastic bands, and slings. Those are the old ways people were treated for shoulder problems. Were you aware these methods are being put to rest? While there are times and places for each of these interventions, they are being used too frequently in health care. Nowadays health care providers are choosing to use manual approaches like Active Release Techniques. Plus there are a lot of new creative ways to strengthen the shoulder responsibly. But, one of the best way to help shoulder pain without any gadgets or equipment is crawling. This article will cover 3 Ways How Crawling Like a Baby Improves Shoulder Strength.

Baby Crawls

The entry point for many people’s home exercise program is the quadruped or crawling position. For most people, they can get into this position without pain and that is important. And while walking is natural for us, before we walk most of us spend some time instinctually crawling.

Crawling is great for a number of reasons. First, it engages the muscles that stabilize the shoulder joint. When you’re recovering from an injury, this is one of the foundational physical requirements to regain your shoulder motion.  Skipping this step and jumping to elastic bands or weights is similar to riding a bike without learning to balance. You’re going to stumble.

While we believe no instructions are necessary for telling you how to crawl like a baby if you need help with this contact us privately.

Low Crawls

The next step in this progression is doing Low Crawls. Low Crawls are exactly like Baby Crawls however you hover each knee about an inch off the floor you’re crawling on. These are a great way to add additional training on bracing your spine and abdominal muscles. These will help improve your hip and back strength and stability plus help your shoulders.

Bear Crawls

For people who work or do activities overhead, we recommend they sample Bear Crawls. Bear Crawls are one of our favorite exercises in patients who lift weights or do a lot of throwing. They help ingrain a healthy cross crawl pattern with shoulder stability that helps rotational athletes (think baseball, volleyball and tennis players plus golfers).

What’s Next?

If you’re having shoulder pain you’re welcome to try these at home to see if adding stability in your shoulders helps your trouble. There is minimal risk in attempting these, so proceed unsupervised if you wish. If you prefer to be evaluated by a professional beforehand, please visit www.movementproviders.com to find a quality health care provider. If you’re in Grand Junction or Western Colorado, please contact us through this link.