Shoulder Impingement Injuries in Sports

Featuring: Johnny Yiu, BHK, MPT

Duration: 1 minute, 16 seconds 

Typically, the way shoulder impingement happens in baseball players is the repeated overhead motion when you do a throw in the late caulking phase, which is shoulders extended, externally rotated and abducted, the structures in the front cause a compression and rub up against the bone of the shoulder. 

Typically, this is a normal motion, but because of the repetitive movements, this may make it a pathological condition, which means it may be painful. Acute traumas do happen to the shoulder on the baseball field. Head first slides do happen, jumping against the wall to catch balls and head-on collisions with the catcher actually shoulder to shoulder do happen sometimes, but overhead motions are typically the most common that happen.

It’s important for a baseball player experiencing these signs and symptoms to contact their physiotherapist or sport med doctor because there are different structures in the shoulder that may be injured. It may not only be the muscle.  It could the ligaments or the bursa sacs of other structures in that capsule. If you try to fix one thing, but ignore the others, it may lead to further injury.

Video done in association, Marpole Physiotherapy Clinic, Vancouver  

Presenter: Mr. Johnny Yiu, Physiotherapist, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Physiotherapist