Shoulder Pain in the Youth Volleyball Player – A Whole-Body Approach
We’ve all heard it… shoulder pain must mean that your young volleyball player has a cartilage tear or a rotator cuff injury. Maybe they’re just experiencing growing pains and have been told they must deal with it. You’ve already taken some time off in an attempt to rest the shoulder. You’ve tried ice and some stretching but you’ve seen little improvement and you don’t know what your next move should be.
At Spooner, we are dedicated to providing answers, and don’t feel you or your athlete should have to continue guessing without understanding their pain or a path toward moving better and feeling better on the court. Athletes push their bodies to the limit on a regular basis, so having a healthcare team to keep them in the game is imperative!
A Weak Link in the Chain
When you observe a volleyball player in action, you will notice the extreme positions of their back, hips, legs, and feet throughout the game. Would you believe us if we told you that dysfunction in a completely different area of the body could be the leading cause of her shoulder pain? You see, the entire human body is linked when it comes to functional movement, especially in sports. Weakness or deficiency in one seemingly unrelated part of the body can spark a chain reaction that has severe implications and impacts on the body’s ability to function correctly throughout the entire chain.
Spooner physical therapists are uniquely trained to determine if there is a correlation between the young athlete’s shoulder pain and actual shoulder pathology, such as weakness, instability, soft tissue impairments, and more. Because multiple areas of the body usually contribute to pain, physical therapists will also address the many other links in the human chain that could affect how your body moves and feels.
How Can We Help?
At Spooner, we dig deeper to understand the root cause of an athlete’s pain. Is it truly a structural instability that is causing a decrease in power? Is it tightness in the front of their hips and abdominal wall that keeps them from extending the way they need to in order to succeed? Is it a weakness in the glutes and spinal muscles that are contributing to over-compensations elsewhere? It can be one or many of those things, and we are here to work with our young athletes to ensure that every aspect of their movement is moving and feeling the way it should!
If your youth athlete (volleyball player or other) is experiencing shoulder pain, let us take a look and determine what links in the chain may be contributing to their discomfort. Our goal is always to get your athlete back on the court, training and competing at their optimal level!
