Have you ever woken up with a stiff and painful shoulder? You may find it difficult to move the shoulder and this is what the symptom of a frozen shoulder is. You can blame myofascial trigger points in the surrounding areas of your shoulder for causing a frozen shoulder. Knots, lumps, or any other areas of your body are the trigger points that cause immense pain due to overuse of muscles. Fortunately, it is treatable with the help of certain exercises, which we are going to talk about.

What is Frozen Shoulder? 

In medical terms, frozen shoulder is termed adhesive capsulitis. As the name suggests, the condition mainly affects the shoulder joints. They become stiff and feel painful. It keeps getting worse as time passes and fades suddenly less than 1-3 years. In this condition, the shoulder capsule (tissue surrounding the shoulder joint) becomes thick and the level of synovial fluid goes down.

Your shoulder will seem dull and sometimes intolerable pain can be observed too. A person goes through three stages during these times- the freezing stage, frozen stage, and thawing stage.

Women have higher chances of getting affected in comparison to men. However, a person recovering from a stroke, mastectomy-like conditions may deal with a frozen shoulder too. In addition, diabetic people are at risk of developing frozen shoulders.

Exercises for Frozen Shoulder 

After having some idea about frozen shoulder, we can take a look at the exercises for treating it.

Pendulum Stretch 

You can start your healthy exercise routine with a pendulum stretch to release a frozen shoulder.

• You have to relax the shoulders and come in a standing position.
• Lean a little so that the affected shoulder goes down.
• Start rotating the arm in a small circle of almost one foot of diameter in whatever direction you prefer.
• Do this 10 times in both clockwise and anti clock wise directions.
• When the symptoms start fading, you can broaden the diameter.
• For more stretching, perform the same exercise while holding a lightweight object of almost 3-4 pounds in your hand.

Towel Stretch 

Yes, the towel is used for stretching exercise, and in fact, it works great for releasing frozen shoulders. Doing this 10-20 times a day can give you a lot of relief.

• Hold a 3-foot long towel with hands your back in a horizontal position. Use one of your arms for lifting the affected arm in the upward direction to stretch.
• If you can do the same exercise with a towel draped on your working shoulder, take the bottom part of the towel with the frozen arm. Bring it to the lumbar region using the good arm.

Umbrella push        

                                                  

In this frozen shoulder exercise, you have to use an umbrella.

• Sit on a chair keeping elbows away from your body in their respective directions. 
• Utilize overhand grip for holding an umbrella
• Use your good arm to push away the frozen arm to the sideway  
• Pull the elbow of your frozen arm to your side 
• Come back in the starting position and perform the same exercise at least 5 times. 

Finger Walk 

Finger walk is all about working on a wall using your fingers.

• Stand against a wall with a distance of three-quarters of your arm length.
• Touch the wall at the height of the waist with the fingertips of the frozen arm.
• Keeping the elbow a bit bent, take up the fingers while making them walk.
• Do this until the arm comes at the shoulder level. If it pains, keep it to chest level.
• Repeat 10-20 times a day by lowering the arm

Final Words

Don’t let frozen shoulder ruin your morning mood or your whole day. Using the above exercises, you can get relief from the symptoms of frozen shoulder but know that it will take some time.