Physiotherapists in Ilkley treat many different conditions including the issues profiled below.

Simple Neck Exercises . Two

Performing routine simple neck exercises every day fulfils a number of functions. It moves the joints through their normal ranges of movement and to the ends of the movement each time, an area where movement can be easily lost without us being aware of it. Movement also stretches out and maintains the length of the annulus of the cervical discs, pulling on the collagen and cartilage fibres of the disc walls. Muscles normally shorten when they are contracting and moving the joints of our bodies and if they are called upon to contract a lot in a particular position they can become more permanently shortened.

Range of movement exercises fully in the opposite direction can stretch out over tight muscles and allow them and the joints to return to more appropriate postural positions as part of a therapy programme. Since much of the use of the neck muscles is to maintain static posture of the head and shoulder area this exposes the head and neck area to long periods in poor positions with unhelpful patterns of muscle contraction. Neck exercises can be done routinely such as three times a day for a certain period or can be done regularly throughout the day to correct poor posture.

The Shoulder

The human shoulder is a design of great functional ability and ingenuity, designed entirely around placing our hands in the places we want them to be. The hand is the tool with which we connect with the world and we need to be able to place it in a great variety of positions so we can manipulate objects. The shoulder contributes to a very large extent to our ability to do this and to achieve this goal it has an extremely large range of motion permitting great flexibility. However, in satisfying the requirement for flexibility it sacrifices stability.

To allow the large range of motion the shoulder is designed with a relatively small socket and a very large ball, the head of the arm bone. The shoulder capsule, the fibrous ligamentous bag which surrounds and supports the joint, is relatively lax and contributes little to stability. The nervous and muscular systems have the job of keeping the large humeral head balanced on the small glenoid cavity (shoulder socket). The large shoulder muscles are more concerned with gross movements of the shoulder, and it is the rotator cuff muscles which perform much of the stabilising work of the joint.