Dr. Karl KnopfHealthy Shoulder Handbook: 100 Exercises for Treating and Preventing Frozen Shoulder, Rotator Cuff and other Common Injuries

I got this for free from my library -- but then decided to buy my own book through Amazon., so I would always have it on hand. A wealth of useful stretch exercises for my strained shoulder.

I had left rotator cuff surgery in May of 2024 followed by five months of physical therapy. I bought the Healthy Shoulder Handbook by Dr. Karl Knoph to help me do some additional stretching exercises to regain a little more range of motion. I started at Chapter Three: The Exercises which contain the Passive and Gentle Series, Floor Series, Roller series, Cane Series, Wall and Door Series, Active Range of Motion Series, Resistance Conditioning Series, Dumbbell Series and Self Massage Series. Each series has numerous exercises to help you gain strength, stamina, and stability in the different muscles, ligaments, tendons, bursas and joints. There is a Rotator Cuff Sample Program that I followed which helped tremendously. I recommend this book to anyone suffering shoulder issues and/or pain.

This book is a very comprehensive look at a range of different exercises for the rotator cuff, as well as prevention programs aimed towards different activities, including baseball, basketball, football, golf, hockey, swimming, tennis, volleyball, wrestling, construction, and office/desk job. it has exercises that are passive (he calls them "gentle" but i'll get back to that), on the floor, on a roller, with a cane, on a wall/door, and then some with resistance (band/dumbbell)However, despite the comprehensiveness of the book, he doesn't actually present a program for acute injury. There is one "rotator cuff routine" on page 18 that appears to be for more acute injuries since it is placed rather awkwardly in the section describing the different rotator cuff injuries that can occur. I was completely unable to do all but one of the exercises in this routine when i was first injured. It was very frustrating and I felt as though the title of the book (especially the "treating" part) was misleading.Dissatisfied, I bought Jim Johnson's Treat Your Own Rotator Cuff, and I did just that - his 5 day a week routine (with number of seconds/number of sets very clearly described) helped me start making small strides towards mobility. Johnsons's book also has a very informative section describing the shoulder and what exactly is happening, as well as why it is useful to do the exercises at all. Now, 6 weeks later, I can finally start in on some of the more sport-specific routines in the Healthy Shoulder Handbook.All that said, I think that this is a great book for *prevention*, and I will use it as my shoulder recovers to prevent future injury.

Great walk thru on the various shoulder exercises. Clear and concise with good pictures. Good for preventative as well as for health

This is an excellent book to pick up where your physical therapist left off. I had just begun to improve when my insurance would no longer pay for my therapy. On my last day of therapy my PT gave me a 1 page hand out that did not clearly illustrate the execises that I needed to begin. I looked up those exercises in this book which were clearly illustrated by photos with suggestions regarding posture while performing these exercises. While it is true that the author does not give a routine to rehabilitate specific injuries, there is no one size fits all plan. Everyone must have an individualized plan. For instance, my therapist does not want me to use resistance training so I have to work around this. There are plenty other exercises to be done other than the bands or using the weights in this book. At first I was only able to do a limited no. of exercises & now I can do more. These exercises have helped with range of motion & is improving stabilization. The goal of my therapist is to improve muscle strenght to prevent further injury & the only way to do that is by a good daily exercise routine. This author gives helpful pointers such as not to sleep on affected side, nor prop yourself up on affected side while reading, nor prop affected arm up in the car window.

This book was a both a little on the basic side and also a little on the technical side -- but the two never seemed to get together. While it may be interesting and at times helpful to know the medical terms for one thing or another, this can bog down people who really don't need to know this information in order to learn how to exercise and maintain their shoulder health. At the same time, knowing the name of the specific muscle or joint that is giving you trouble (from discussions with your health care professional) and seeing those same names in the book will help you find relief if you are suffering from an injury.Illustrations could be a little clearer -- especially when exercises require motions, these motions could be illustrated better with curved lines with arrows on each end near the point of movement. A static view of a movement can be confusing when you only have a still picture or illustration of some point in the movement and a text description that sometimes burdens the reader with technical names that need to be looked up earlier in the book to understand fully.The most important thing to remember is that if you are recovering from a shoulder injury, you should not push yourself too hard. This can set up enough pain that you will not do your exercises enough and may not enjoy other activities, like sleeping. Instead, move to the point where you start to feel a bit of pain, then stop. If you monitor this, you will actually see each time you do something, you can go a little further without pain up to a point. Don't push past this point, and treat the build-up movement that let you gain a little each time you did them as a warm-up -- just like the way a runner will warm-up by stretching before a race.Good luck with your shoulders.