Exercises For Nerve Pain In Arm And Shoulder
Other Pinched Nerve Exercises
#7 Aerobic Exercise - Aerobic exercise such as walking, cycling and swimming reduce the pain and discomfort associated with a pinched nerve by increasing your blood circulation and delivering oxygen and nutrients to the damaged nerve, which facilitates healing.
#8 Pilates - Pilates is excellent for balancing muscle development, building a strong core, and reinforcing good posture. Its low impact is a perfect choice for exercising to relieve pain from pinched nerves and minimize risk of re-injury.
#9 Yoga - Yoga combines classic poses, controlled breathing, and deep relaxation to condition and strengthen your body regardless of your current flexibility or other physical limitations.
#10 Water Exercises - Simply moving around in water helps loosen and limber up your body while offering it support you wouldn’t normally get on dry land. For some specific suggestions, listen to Steve Hefferon’s short audio on water exercises for back pain.
Muscle Balance Therapy
While all of these exercises can help relieve pain from a pinched nerve, if you want to prevent its recurrence you must address the leading cause of all back pain, and much of the pain elsewhere in your body: muscle imbalances.
Muscle balance therapy is a systematic approach for identifying the specific muscle imbalances behind your pain. It then gives you targeted exercises to strengthen your underworked, weak muscles and targeted stretches to loosen up those tight, overworked muscles.
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Be patient when exercising damaged nerve
injuries to peripheral nerves are common in the general population. This includes conditions such as “pinched nerves” in the neck or back, caused by disc herniations, bone spurs or thickened ligaments, and carpal tunnel syndrome.
When a nerve has been compressed of sufficient magnitude and duration, the usual transport up and down the nerve of various proteins and other substances may be blocked or slowed down, increasing the irritability of the nerve. Even slight nerve compression can reduce the blood flow to the nerve, making it more sensitive. Greater nerve compression can lead to cell death in the nerve, and subsequent regrowth or regeneration of the nerve after the nerve compression has been sufficiently relieved.
Significant stress put on a paralyzed muscle through stretching or strengthening can delay and may even prevent full nerve recovery. Such treatment should not be started until the late stage of nerve regeneration when progressive strength return can be seen. As a general rule, a muscle which has been weakened due to nerve compression should not be exercised until there is measurable return of muscle strength and there is minimal pain associated with the nerve injury.
A severely injured nerve may require many months before initiating any resistive exercise to allow for sufficient nerve healing. A less traumatized nerve may be able to tolerate light exercise within the first month.
If a nerve cannot handle the task of exercise, there may be increased pain, tingling or numbness, or even increased muscle weakness during or after the exercise.
When rehabilitating the neck and back, if there is remaining arm and shoulder or leg tingling/numbness or residual arm and shoulder or leg weakness, the muscles in the shoulder and arm or leg that have been affected by the nerve injury should typically not be exercised with resistance or stretching early on. Instead, focus should be put on exercising stabilizing muscles in the neck and back to gently promote nerve mobility.
The recovering nerve can also handle lower intensity exercise better than high intensity. This can even apply to old severe nerve injuries that happened one to two years ago. Symptoms and muscle strength must always be measured as the rehabilitation exercises are initiated and progressed.
