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I have a vaulter who last spring hurt her top hand's (left) rotator cuff. She just strained it, but was in a lot of pain. She did tough it out and competed at District, but she has BIG goals for the next 2 years. Does anyone have any suggestions for her on techniques, drills, rehab, etc?

Ouch!

I don't know much about rotator cuff injuries, but I would say make sure she does not take off under when she vaults. That is a good way to get everything out of whack.

I am sure other people on here know more about shoulder rehab than I do. Mine are turbo flexible so I have never had any problems there.

yeah shoulder injuries are not a fun thing to do. my freshman year i tore the muscel that is pretty much in my arm pit, and that hasn't been fun. it likes to dislocate itself alot. i can easly say that i have dislocated my (top hand shoulder) over 50 times. i have only done it like twice vaulting though. as for the drills that you should do if you have injuries to the shoulder i can't realy tell you want to do. but taking like 2 weeks off from like anything helps. but if it was just a sprain then you don't need 2 weeks off. if you know a realy good orthopedic masuse i would recomend going to that. (i love having a friend who is one. she fixes me up all the time)

First you she needs to find out which rotator cuff muscle is injured so you know how to rehab it. You don't want to wait around on this b/c it can feel better but never heel correctly to be able to with stand repetitive use. Then you are in a pickle. There are three muscles that make up the rotator cuff supraspinatus, infraspinatus, and subscapularis. The fxn of the rotator cuff muscles is to intitiate movment in the upper arm and control fine movment. They are essentially the deltoid muscles little helpers. So to rehab the rotator cuff it takes very little wieght other wise the deltoid muscle take over and does most of the work. So easiest most inexpensive piece of rehab equip. is a thra band (stretchy surgical tubing). you are just working against the elastic resistance of the tubing. actual wieght lifting is tricky b/c you have a tendency to lift too much wieght to work the rotator cuff muscles, then you end up working the deltoid muscle out and injuring the rotator cuff. But first you need to know what muscle of the three is injured to know how to rehab it. I suggset the she see's a sports med doctor that works with a physical Therapist. This is important b/c some times there is a huge difference in the way a general practitioner and a sports med doc will manage the case.

very good post, I recommend seeing a doctor too. I tore cartilage and strained the rotator cuff in mid vault a few years ago, and thats what I did. The doc's told me to do these specific excercises to strengthen the rotator cuff, but only using resistance bands. It worked great. after a few months my shoulder stayed put during vaults. But you definetly want to see a sports med specialist and have them diagnose it or at least they will know the best excercises for your particular injury.